#some are considered to be more metaphoric and less direct

[villainessbian]

wait, bar mitzvah and bat mitzvah are gendered terms?

[weskie]

Earned (Albert Wesker x gn!Reader)

no warnings, wesker lives au, extremely loose followup to this, wesker receiving affection, i think he deserves it, if that's wrong i don't wanna be right | Fic Directory

Sometimes you can see through the cracks of his cold, unbothered demeanor.

There’s something… fragile under all of it.  Buried beneath decades of shielding himself from the worst this world had to offer, from dealings with the dregs of humanity and a life manufactured and directed without his knowledge.

You remember how volatile Wesker had been after discovering the truth from Spencer.  The cracks you peer through now had been wedged clear open back then.  Salt dumped into the not-so-metaphorical wound.  You found him in a fit of rage when he finally came home, destroying his entire office just to cope in the only way he could think of.  Splinters of debris gave way under your footsteps and he glared daggers at you, daring you to come closer, daring you to cross the fray into the eye of the storm.

His reluctance to let you touch him weaned with every passing second that you smoothed your thumbs over his cheeks.  It was startling to see his typically calm exterior eroded so completely. You’d never seen him so… shattered.  It wasn’t until later that you’d understand that the foundation of his entire life had been swept out from under his feet. But, even then, you had an inkling that something had truly shaken him to his core.

“Who am I?”  

You’ll never forget the flare of amber glowing brighter in his eyes as each word fell from his lips over and over, nor the bruising grip he had on your arms, until he hid his face in the crook of your neck– secretly so desperate to hide from the haunting revelations of his life.

And you don’t forget it now as you run your fingers through his hair, cradling his head on your lap while he rests.  His recovery had been long and arduous, and it had humbled him more than anything possibly could have.  His dependence upon you had been a nearly insurmountable sore spot, but you wager it taught him a truth so incredibly foreign to his perception of the world.

Vulnerability can be okay.

At least it can be with you.  You’re not out here to stab him in the back or raw deal him for a larger cut in some grand scheme.  You’re not a multi-billion dollar pharmaceutical company pulling his strings nor the corpse that once orchestrated the entire marionette show.

You’re someone who loves him– adores him. 

It’s taken him a very long time to truly believe that, much less accept it.  You will forever be his greatest weakness and strength, all rolled into one.  You are leverage for anyone who wants to truly hurt him, but you are also the ferocity with which he will unmake them for even considering it.  

Worse yet? 

You are the only reason he’s glad to have not perished in that volcano.  Wesker remembers only flashes of his dreams while cocooned in Uroboros, but he knows, without a shadow of a doubt, that he dreamt of you.  That it was your voice that pulled him through, your presence that he reached out to in his near comatose state. It was you who he sought after waking, despite how his body screamed to cease his movements.

So maybe…

Maybe it isn’t so wrong to let those cracks open up when he’s with you.  Maybe you should see the parts of him locked away from the world.  You should know the little boy thrown into the best boarding schools money could buy, the one who wondered if he had parents like the others did, who sought academic excellence so that he’d have even a fraction of the love he’s seen bestowed upon others by right of birth to those who could love them– to the man he is now, stripped of his pride and still always left to wonder what his true name had been.

Long ago, he asked you a question under much different circumstances.  Have you earned me, he’d said.  As he peeks through his farce of sleeping to take in the sight of you looking at him with endless love, only one thought lingers in his mind.

You have.

[sector38]

From Sector: 38

Entry: II

After my last "encounter," my mind was made – I couldn't just sit at the edge of the sector staring out at the abyss – a hunger had made itself a home inside of me, nested under my bosom and in between my ribcage. For what it was worth, I could now say I was the proud owner of a brand new sector pass (actually in date this time), meaning I could also now apply for a real job. Before, it felt like I was wading through murky waters devoid of a lighthouse: without any sense of direction or purpose, but now I knew where I was going, who I was to be, and what I was to become – a xenologist.

It wasn't the easiest job. When I told my friends, they outright laughed. Sure, the world wasn't what it used to be – fancy bits of laminated paper were all lost to the flood – but that didn't mean that anyone could just walk in with zero qualifications, no questions asked. This was especially so for jobs that didn't exist pre-flood (including but not limited to, you guessed it, xenology). Before, if the job existed, maybe I would have gone to some elite university and collected my certificate that, for some reason, was meant to equate four years of my life, with a smile – now, we had the circuits.

On the bright side, it was a shorter process, 6-12 months if you survived that long and shorter if you didn't. I didn't know the process that well (sue me), but I knew that I would be starting at the outer tier, maintenance (glorified clean-up crew) and working my way in, each stage more deadly than the last until finally I reached the core, or as its more commonly known, "The Arena." I could never just choose the easy path.

I knew I should have been nervous, but... I just wasn't. I guess after the encounter, it was hard to feel like I hadn't been given some top-secret information that put me ahead. I hadn't really had the time to think about it, or I did, but there wasn't really much to say or do. It wasn't like I could tell anyone – I don't know what would have been worse: them not believing me or their faces of disgust.

When all countries were dissolved, you'd have liked to think everyone would lose their patriotism (you know, considering there were no more countries to worthlessly devote themselves to) – wrong. The world became one big country, one metaphorical empire ruled by the human race. This meant anyone or anything not of the human race or not subservient to the human race (like my neighbour, Julie's pet squid) was technically considered an enemy of the state.

Wait, did I fuck a public enemy?

First-day jitters were nothing in comparison to whatever I was feeling, especially considering this wasn't even my first day more like a very short tester solo shift - in all my time on sector 38 I'd never felt seasick (probably because the plates don't move) and yet here I was suddenly greatly empathetic towards the poor souls who found themselves violently ill holidaying in pacific waters. I could barely walk straight, my legs felt like jelly, and my stomach was so heavy I genuinely wondered if I'd swallowed an anchor between breakfast and lunch.

Even now, i still don't understand why i was alone during my tester shift? I get that it was just three tasks, but typically, unless you're a high-level, you're not to be left alone - always followed by a superior. Still, as i said, it wasn't even like I was going to be doing much, according to the alerts who sent me my assignments the night before my shift

. Stack the crates

. File away medical instruments

. Clean the pods on deck Xv_2

Pretty standard stuff, to be honest. If i cared half as much as i should, I'd be outraged that they gave me such menial work - but i didn't, so i wasn't. All i cared about was getting to see more of them, speak to them, and understand them, and the only way to do that was to become a xenologist.

At that point, I couldn't care less about hierarchy and ranks - i didn't understand the tangled web of beurocracy or how clearing badges worked, well not until I'd spent less than five seconds on the deck and i was promtly told

"Attention!"

The wooden crate I'd be carrying dropped to the ground with a hollow thud, the solid wood colliding with the metal flooring, making an awful cacophony. I looked up at the figure and saw a man dressed in a black suit with a white under shirt and black tie, on his black hair sat snug a white naval cap and across his chest a number of metal pins. He looked at me expectantly, i hadn't been told anyone else would be on shift as far as I knew I was supposed to meet my peers next week.

While trying to carefully stack the box in the appropriate space, I gave an awkward smile

"Hi"

Somehow, in a moment, his face grew colder, from freezing to a subzero tundra in an instant - I could tell he wanted to say more, to reprimand me, put me in place - but promtly his alarm sounded on his right wrist.

He left without a word, his face coloured with urgency.

To say I was confused would be an understatement. In the new world, the navy took on a more active role with the marines following suit to a lesser degree and the army taking the least precedence out of the three - so seeing a navy officer wasn't unheard of or even uncommon, but a lieutenant?

It just didn't make any sense, especially considering my work for today was entirely made up of menial tasks - and the look on his face as he left or even before that when I greeted him? I'm not in the navy, clearly so why what was he expecting me to do? Salute? Bowe? Kiss the ground beneath his feet?

It didn't matter, I told myself, i quite literally had one job: keep my head down and become a certified xenologist...well, aside from cleaning the pods on deck.

After stacking the last of the crates and refusing to give into my temptation of opening them, I set about trying to look for the ever elusive deck Xv_2

I mean, would it have KILLED them to give me a map or something? All the corridors looked the same - eggshell cream walls with blue strip lights - every turn, every left, every right didn't feel like it was getting me any closer, to be honest, I wasn't sure if this was some sort of time warp zone, an after effect of some eldritch creature washed up during the flood.

Wandering through the halls, I passed numerous rooms with bolted doors and bright yellow signs with bold black writing, as if they were so afraid that someone might accidentally open the securely locked doors - aside from doors armed to the teeth I passed a myriad of people, i can't really use one word to describe them:

From white coats with slicked-back hair, needle-straight posture to black suits, black ties, white collars, and broze pins to white hazmat suits and black boots.

Like some sort of machine, my brain was fixed on identifying and categorising my colleagues (colleagues). Well, that was until I heard it, tapping against the walls

It was faint at first, easily missable, but then the sounds grew louder, the rapid patter of the metal walls surrounding me like rain against the window - except there was nothing to see, no visible trace of the source of the sound just the noise, just the polyphonic array.

If this was a film, the corridors would be dimly lit with no signs of life but my own heartbeat and panting breath ringing in my ears, but this is the real world, if anything the bright neon lights and the industrious workers who I chanced upon only led to an increase in my anixety - it was as though i was going insane, as though i was being followed

"Could no one else hear that?"

The noise was atonal and offbeat - seeming to come from everywhere and nowhere all at once, bouncing off the walls like an echo. My eyes darted around the corners of the walls as I discreetly tried to turn my head to locate the source of the sound only to be met with nothing. Whatever it was, it was quick. It was just too quick, the persistent creature darting always just out of sight.

Finally, after what felt like a literal millennia, I ran into a steal door labelled

Xv_2

I pushed both the persistent scurrying aside and the absurdly weighted door - inside a dimly lit room with large cylinders attached to the centre wall. To call it a deck seemed overly gracious, with the sizing being more akin to an office space or a large storeage room.

As i walked closer towards the cylinders, I understood why they needed to be cleaned - they were filthy, dust coating them in an opaque sheild blocking any possible view of whatever was sealed within them.

I grabbed the tissue pack I'd hastily shoved in my bra before leaving the house and stared at the cylinders - there was NO way they'd be enough. A part of me seriously thought about using my top, but the thought quickly vanished when i remembered I did actually have to leave the facility without being arrested for public indecency.

And that's when i felt it, a brush of cold air against my neck, raising my hair and sending a shiver down my spin. Instantly, I dropped my tissue pack on the small table and turned around but only to be met by nothing, empty space. I stared out at the room for a moment as though someone or something would magically appear it would probably still have only been the second strangest thing to happen to me as of last.After sufficiently staring out into an empty room I turned back around...

The tissues were gone.

I looked down at the floor, nothing. Half baked thoughts swirled around my head as i looked around the room

"I could have sworn i- did i bring them? Yes. Maybe i dropped them on a crate? No, i had them when-"

Finally, i got on my knees searching underneath the desk in hopes that somehow they'd fallen and I'd kicked them under. It was so dark I should have brought my phone or a flashlight or something, as I lent further under the desk the space narrowed which, if i was paying attention i would have known.

But, alas, i wasn't - instead, my mind was still fixed on how i needed to be more prepared in the future and how i shouldn't have a phone if i wasn't going to use it because the last time I didn't bring my phone i got-

Cold.

Cold air against my bare thighs, that feeling again. Except this time the cold felt more real? The touch more weighted less like the air and more like a person?

I stilled against the feeling, with every passing second the pressure grew till i could shape the outline: a hand.

I tried to move backwards from under the desk but promptly the feeling of another hand splayed across my waist - halting any movement. The hand across my waist kept a firm solid grip, with the cold air seeping through my clothes and onto my skin as though I were naked whilst the other fingers which previously splayed across my thigh began to move, inching ever so slowly towards my upper thigh.

Maybe it was the confusion or remnants of my first (but technically not first) day jitters. Maybe it was a cocktail of both, but I found myself slightly pushing towards the unknown force. Whatever it was must have taken that as a sign because suddenly, the fingers brushed in between my inner thighs dangerously close to my knickers.

I didn't know who or what was behind me, no-one else was in the room bar me and with only one entrance and exist it would have be impossible for anyone to come in without my knowledge - especially considering how heavy the door was.

This couldn't be a who, I thought. It must have been a what.

The thought excited me, that familiar warmth spreading in my lower stomach now juxtaposing the icy touch of the creature - I couldn't help but let out a breathy whimper. The creature must have heard because, within an instant, its cold finger pressed against my clothed entrance. The pressure was barely there, barely feelable almost imperceptible but that's what made is to so maddening - what made me push back against it despite the very firm hand on my waist.

We continued our dance: me pushing backwards, aching and desperate for any sort of relief or solid touch, and its outright reluctance to give it to me aside from the arctic hold on my mid section I could feel myself growing wetter, throbbing in a hot aching want. If i was capable of shame at that point, I would have been berating myself for wearing white panties instead of a more concealing black.

The feel of the wet material sticking to me and the mystery surrounding the strange figure was getting to be too much, I'd tried to bite my glossed lips concealing more whimpers and moans but i couldn't hold back anymore. I began to rock back harder, sounds slipping from my mouth like condensation down glass till the monster showed me mercy.

A cool finger began to push into me through my now presumably clear underwear, the sensation of wet cotton and the icy appendage dipping into me making me moan all the more - but it wasn't enough. I began to beg, pleas falling from my mouth faster than my brain could protest.

Cold and wet dragged along my cunt so abruptly I hit my head against the desk but I was too aroused to care - slowly the figure dragged its icy dripping tongue against me, lapping up my desire through my panties and adding to the wet region.

The drag was devastatingly slow, and whilst the pressure was a reprieve from my previous torture, it was nowhere near enough, tears gathered in my eyes as I begged for more. Then, I felt the being give one final lick before spreading my thighs out further and removing its hand from my waist - I was untouched.

For a brief moment, i wondered if it had left me, alone and hungry, desperate for something more - thankfully, it didn't. Instead, I felt what seemed to be a light kiss to my upper thigh before my skirt was bunched up to above my ass. The suddenness of it all made my gasp like a scandalised southern bell -as though I wasn't begging to be fucked by a stranger (who most definitely wasn't human) under a desk at my first day at work- though rapidly my gasp morphed into a whine as I felt the monster slip underneath my shaking spread out thighs so that the back of its head might rest against the floor with now both hands grasping my waist and hips.

It began to lick into me (still over my underwear) with a passion that I've never known, the glacial touch contrasting the warm friction building. I began to rock and press down onto its tongue and in response it sucked and licked and fucked into me with its tongue.

I'd asked, begged for more and I'd gotten it but I've always been greedy, always been stupid and reckless and impulsive, always been bossy even when I'm on my knees and then was absolutely no different.

"Let me fuck your mouth"

Instantly as soon as the words left my mouth I felt it moan against me the sensation only making me want it more, carefully after giving a few more playful sucks it released me - somehow even with its cold presence when it left me, the room felt so much more glacial.

I slid out from under the desk my shaking legs doing very little to help me in this endeavour, but before i could turn around to face the entity hands covered my eyes, of course this did nothing in ways of stopping me from seeing but I understood the getsture and so I closed my eyes.

Once my eyes were closed, the figure rearranged our bodies like a jigsaw piece as though it and I were one cohesive being all while I was immersed in the faint scent of sea salt and rain-soaked earth emanating from the creature - the delicate nature of the smell, alien to the steady yet all-consuming auror of the beast - like the sky before a storm. Once again, it was pressed against the ground with the back of its head to the metal flooring, and I was on top of it, this time fully able to sit with a straight posture.

It slowly guided me with my eyes still closed to its mouth with my still clothed cunt at first gently resting against its lips not wanting to move before it was ready till I felt it place both its sturdy hands on my waist and force me to rock into its mouth slightly.

I began slow, moving backwards and forwards on its cold tongue, trying to find a starting rhythm before the heat that momentarily subsided rose in full formation. Its hands were everywhere on my waist, my hips, my tummy. Like it was pushing and pulling me down and up, away, and to. Then suddenly one of its strong arms was lifting me slightly off its mouth eliciting an unexpected whine from me whilst the other moved the lace fabric to the side before gently lowering me back onto its cold wet mouth.

The feeling was foreign, invasive, intrusive, like a virus spreading through my body overtaking each nerve and blood cell before leaving me powerless to resist or even the desire to. The cold spit-soaked tongue dragged perfectly against me like waves hitting against the rocks, never missing their mark. I began to ride into its mouth, eyes rolling to the back of my head as I felt a familiar pressure build within me. I was so close to the edge, to the beginning and end of bliss. I didn’t know what the creature was or if it was even capable of feeling pleasure in the same way I did, but the desperate movements of its cold hands, one gripping my waist and the other my boobs showed me I wasn't alone in my heightened arousal.

Pleas and cries spilt from my lips, each more nonsensical and crass than the last:

"Please, please, fuck I'll be so good, fuck, your mouth its so- so perfect, you're so good for me, fuck, just like that, right there-"

Till eventually like an electrical current, the feeling washed over me - like fuzzy static interferce my whole body sparked alite. Its cold hands pressed me down harder as my body spasmed, tears welled in my eyes as I tried to move away, the pleasure building to be all too much, the overstimulation becoming extreme - but its presence remained lapping up my cum from my wet, warm, throbbing cunt.

My legs felt like jelly as it finally allowed me to stand, my lack of balance definitely not helped by my inability to see.

"Can I open my eyes... Tap me twice for yes?"

I felt a press of cold lips against my neck and then temple, sending a shiver down my spine and a small smile on my face before opening my eyes and turning around to see

Nothing.

I looked around the room confusion growing clearer on my face - thoughts regarding whether I'd made the whole scenario up in my head beginning to take root - before I felt cold hands rest against my cheek holding my head tilted slightly upwards before I felt cold lips move again against mine. The kiss was dry, soft, and sweet, still smelling of sea salt and storms and in that moment my mind was still, at peace like a total oneness with the world, with the truth whatever that may be.

Warning. Warning. Emergency alert. Code Amber. Please isolate in groups immediately. This is not a drill. Repeat. Warning. Warning. Emergency alert. Code Amber. Please isolate in groups immediately. This is not a drill.Warning. Warning. Emergency alert. Code Amber. Please isolate in groups immediately. This is not a drill. Repeat. Warning. Warning. Emergency alert. Code Amber. Please isolate in groups immediately. This is not a drill.

[sepublic]

Alright, let's talk about some details from the TOH pitch bible;

A lot of the stuff is what we've already seen and/or in line with the show. What's interesting is that King WAS a former King of Demons at one point, and we would've had an episode where he runs into his old gang and chooses Luz and Eda over them. It makes me wonder if he even had a connection to the Titan in earlier drafts, if he wasn't recognized as one back in the day because he just wasn't big enough, etc. Eda makes a deal to help remove the collar, which IS the source of King's woes, placed by a 'mysterious wizard', I wouldn't be surprised if it was Obron AKA Proto-Belos.

What gets me is that Tibbles originally started off as a friend to the protagonists, while Bump was an antagonist! Coupled with Tibbles being re-elected as mayor after Bump is deposed for corruption. I like the detail of Bump being a parasite controlling a body from the head, because it carried over into his final design with Frewin, and before we got confirmation Frewin was a separate entity, I loved the joke theory that the imp on Bump's head was the REAL Bump!!! Seems that was always the implied story of the design, I love it. Tibbles being the demon fan of human stuff would eventually become Gus instead, so this is technically Proto-Gus too…?

Interesting how Bump and Tibbles' alignments switch completely with one another, and it makes sense that with Lilith no longer the principal in the final draft, it goes to Bump, who ends up being really chill and a subversion in his own right! Interesting, but I do prefer the final Bump we got, and that's fine by me, because when the concepts aren't as interesting as the final product, it means we got the best possible version.

I've already discussed Obron and William in a separate post, and Pupa is someone we've been told about in a previous livestream. Lilith would've been both head of all covens (and not just the Emperor's Coven) AND principal at the same time, and she seems much more of a jerk to Eda in general; She has no qualms with cursing Eda because of a direct order from Obron.

Apparently the curse would've been an AGING spell, which settles my questions on how it would've been portrayed in earlier drafts! This goes along with Eda's older look. Likewise, there would've been a subplot of Eda considering Luz's sacrifice as a way to restore her youth, which likely goes hand in hand with Obron's orders to bring Luz to her, etc. The 'Bloom of Eternal Youth' quest, which Eda and Lilith go through together as their sisterly relationship is explored, feels like a carryover from this past idea.

I think I prefer the final draft; I like that the curse isn't just aging Eda, but also takes away her magic, makes her turn into a beast, etc. I like Lilith being a lot more complicated in her relationship with Eda, instead of just hating her and cursing her without hesitation. The redefining of the curse makes it less about age, and more a chronic illness metaphor, and I like how Eda in the final draft is upfront about having to learn to live with it, deal with it, on her own terms. She isn't trying to find a cure (although Lilith being promised one by Obron feels like a carryover of Eda's moral dilemma with Luz), and that adds another nice dimension to her conflict with Lilith, as well as Gwen. It's pretty frank in its own right about normalizing disability, and those who play an antagonistic role (however brief) are the real weirdoes for making such a fuss about it.

The Bat Queen would've had more of a recurring role based on the description, which saddens me; I always got the vibe she was planned for more, but between all of the other stuff the show had to juggle, plus the shortening, she ended up getting shafted despite being one of the earlier characters. Sashley, Pasha, and Bruno are also interesting, with Pasha in particular giving me freaking Philip Wittebane vibes with his grossness, beard, and anti-demon attitude; He even starts off as a potential friend to Luz because fellow human, only for his true bigotry to show. Makes me wonder if Philip ended up incorporating Pasha, we also have bodily transformation because of consuming magical stuff... P-names.

(Also, I like how in the drawing of typical Demon Realm denizens, I can see an eye demon who resembles a past drawing of Dana's!!!)

Eda was actually a late bloomer, which creates a parallel with Luz in one way, and their relationship is referred to as sisterly (in the final draft it’s explicitly maternal). So Eda wouldn't have been the talented youth, in fact things may have switched between her and Lilith; Lilith's disdain may have partially come from Eda not being as innately talented as her.

Luz and Amity's dynamic seems like it would've had Amity retain a lot of her more stand-offish, pragmatic personality even as a friend with Luz, and this would've come up more; So basically, she'd remain more like S1 Amity. That, or this part of their relationship would've lasted longer, and then we would've seen character development as Amity unlearns a lot of the issues her parents passed on. I also wonder if the Willow who cameos in the pilot was originally supposed to just be an extra separate from ‘Paulina’, but then they combined the two together.

The themes are exactly as I expected, glad to see they're still there, nothing changed! Luz becoming a witch and defying all odds to do so, putting in real work and passion. Celebrating individuality amidst conformity, plus Luz trying to impose her own fictional tropes onto the world, only to have to put that aside... Just like Wing it like Witches. It seems Amity would've had more involvement with Luz's journey to become a witch, though we still do have a carryover of that disconnect with her rant near the end of Covention.

I love the Demon Realm being situated BELOW the Human Realm, way to be subtle about being Hell you guys lol... Apparently portals to the human world are a lot rarer to find and use, which makes me wonder if the pilot's 'dimension port' doesn't have access to the human world; Meaning Amity is Luz's only way back, so her improved relationship with her is linked to getting back home. There's a gag about the Knee having service with the human world, but I can see how that didn't make the cut, for dramatic purposes; It seems like the premise for a S1 episode or at least a B-plot. Would Luz have struggled to communicate with Camila through this, or would her search for wi-fi be for mundane reasons?

Apparently Luz's magic would've required a lot more steps to complete, and I see why the show simplified things down to just glyphs. I wonder if there was always going to be the connection of glyphs as a gift from the Titan, or if the Titan and her story was going to be less intertwined in the overall narrative. There also don't seem to be nine main covens, just the many, many covens, some of which are pretty ridiculous, and Covention's sub-covens seem a callback to that.

Luz's first spell would've been levitation, and THEN she would've infiltrated Hexside, with Amity being a lot subtler about exposing Luz, though in the final draft she does figure that out as the way to go in I was a Teenage Abomination. Yeah, I prefer Light being her original spell, feels so much more symbolic and personal, etc. I wonder if the Titan is even as much of a character in early drafts, and if there's still the whole connection/relationship with the land and learning to respect it aspect. Some of these hypothetical episodes push the idea of Amity as a more episodic, typical popular kid antagonist, though in the final draft, the show goes through her character development and explores Amity's romantic relationship with Luz and its complications.

It seems the idea of the Mirror Ghost was split into Adegast and Vee, with Adegast being the one who offers the easier narrative for Luz to believe in about becoming a witch (only to be a fraud who uses uncanny puppets), and Vee being a doppelganger whom Luz communicates through with mirrors. Interesting how Yesterday's Lie was born from this. We saw the test animation from Spencer Wan for TOH, so I guess we know what Luz's puppet-doppelganger is called! And we can safely call her Proto-Vee. I wonder if she also would've been a sympathetic character, I always thought she reminded me of Lake from Infinity Train (and speculated her to be as such since Enchanting Grom Fright), and now the similarities are even MORE apparent!

Alas, The Good Witch Azura, or 'The Unassuming Princess' seems like it'd have been a lot less dear to Luz's heart, as the pilot also reflects; In the end, it turns out the author is just Eda's ex using her adventures as basis, and including private information. I remember when I once speculated that Raine, before we saw their face, would've been just like this as the author of Azura... Again, I think I prefer Azura as being a lot less mean-spirited in the final draft, and instead a celebration of who Luz is as a person, her relationship with fantasy and fiction, etc. We also would've had a Luz birthday party, the Quincenera we've been hoping for since S1...! In the final draft (and episode) we still get that Human-Demon Realm disconnect, though by that point, Luz is much more attuned and chill with the isles.

There’s definitely more of an episodic, sitcom feel to this pitch bible, especially when you compare Proto-Yesterday’s Lie to its final version. Makes sense, Dana is pitching this to Disney executives, though her statement on Understanding Willow feeling truly like her show makes me wonder if she always intended to push TOH in that more serious, emotional route we got.

[jeysbvck]

it always leads to you (in my hometown)

oh hi, im back after almost a year of not posting fics, and of course it's my main man who pulls me back in! this is my first jey uso fic, so pls comment & reblog & let me know what you think!! i tried to make it angsty, to fit the song more, but i guess that's not the direction my brain wanted to go!!

jey uso x afab!reader

smut, 18+, minors dni!!

word count: 2,420

some people i thought might like this (if you don't wanna be tagged, just let me know!): @southerngirl41 @bebesobrielo @harmshake @afterdarkprincess @rollinsland @wrestlezaynia @crxssjae

summary: when you're in town for the holidays, it always ends up with you in jey usos bed for the weekend. this time, it isn't enough, and jey shows you why you can't leave him behind.

You stared out the window, feeling content as you watched the snow fall outside, frost gathering on the glass. You and Jey had spent all weekend in bed, sleeping half the day away and sharing body heat in more ways than one; which is how you spent all the fleeting weekends together. You had so much to do before you left in two days, but you couldn't bring yourself to leave the warm bed, especially when Jey was sleeping beside you, looking like a literal angel.

This had been happening for the last four years and you remembered it all too well; the bewildered, haunted look when Jey locked eyes with you for the first time in years, like he'd seen a ghost. You remembered the ice that ran through every vein in your body when he walked past you without acknowledging you, making you consider whether you were a ghost. You remember lying in your childhood bedroom, old photographs of you and Jey still on your walls, staring down at you, judging you. You knew you'd hurt him when you left, he didn't think your reasons were good enough; but it never crossed your mind that he'd pretend you were a stranger. But as you stared at the posters and photographs on your walls, you realised that you were a stranger now, you didn't recognise the girl in the photographs anymore.

A few days later, you bumped into Jey again, this time you were both alone, walking past the school you used to share, and things seemed different. He opened a dialogue, asked you how you'd been, asked about your life, and before you knew it, you'd been standing in the cold for half an hour. Jey offered you a ride, and you weren't ready for this to end; it felt familiar, but also new. So you accepted and you drove around the small town, commenting on how things hadn't changed. Four hours later, you were in his bed, doing things you had only dreamed about.

You thought it would be a one-off, that maybe the universe was giving you a better goodbye than the first time, a better reunion than the one in the bar. But the next holiday you were in town, he text you, and you ended up in his bed again. Then Jey started surprising you at the airport -sometimes you hadn't even told him what time your flight was- and although he dropped you off at your parents house, it wasn't long before you were spending most of the time with Jey. It was essentially a weekend-long holiday hook up, a way to make you feel less lonely during the holidays and a way to have what could've been -what should've been- if you had just stayed.

Jey stirred in his slumber, retracting his arm that was stretched over you, taking away the warmth and leaving a chill behind, as you pulled the quilt up further, you couldn't help but think of it as a metaphor for how you would feel in a couple of days when you left. You turned your back on the beautiful view outside the window to the -in your totally, unbiased opinion- the more beautiful view next to you. Even after all the years of knowing Jey, he still took your breath away, he still set your heart ablaze. Every time you were here, you took every opportunity to mentally record every detail of him to take back with you. Every new grey hair, every tattoo, every laughter line, every perfect imperfections, you took it all in. You basked in the warmth, the comfort, the happiness that you felt in this bed, knowing it would all be over in a flash.

"Mornin' babe," Jey said, with a sleepy smile, "you're watchin' me sleep, forgot you were a creep."

You hummed in response as you leaned forward and placed a soft kiss on his pillow-like lips. "And I forgot you snore." You teased, and Jey scoffed, his hand wrapping around the back of your neck, pulling you in for another kiss.

"Such a liar." He mumbled against your lips and you smiled, pulling away and finding your place on his chest. Your fingertips traced the lines of his intricate tattoo on his chest, as his stroked your back, soothingly.

The time you spent with Jey, in this bed, the room, the house; felt like a different world. Like reality as you know it didn't exist here, it was just you and Jey, and nothing else mattered. You hated leaving, you hated getting on the plane, going back to your life like you hadn't just left the warmest place you'd ever known.

"So..." Jey started, and you knew what was coming. The dreaded question that he asked every time. "How long we got? Until you-"

You cut him off, not wanting the words to be said, as if it somehow wouldn't happen if Jey didn't speak it into the universe. "I know what you mean, Jey." You sighed. "Can't we just stay in this bubble for a little longer?"

"How much longer? Like, you wanna talk later, over dinner? Or how about the mornin' of your flight so we barely get to say goodbye?" He snapped, and you scoffed at the outburst. "Ay, you're the one who-"

"Okay," you cut him off before he finished the sentence, sitting up and throwing your legs over the edge of the bed, grabbing the robe that had been thrown on the floor the night before as you stood up and pulled it over your body. "You really wanna spend the time arguing?"

"No! I jus'-" Jey groaned and turned on his side, his elbow resting on the mattress. "Okay listen, I know our whole thing; no stayin', no waitin', but-"

"No Jey, this works!" You lied. You knew you were trying to convince him more than yourself, because you knew it wasn't working. If it did, leaving him wouldn't break your heart, you wouldn't spend the year counting down to the next holiday. Nobody in your life knew you like Jey. They didn't know which smiles you were faking, or which laughs were genuine. They didn't even know your coffee order, or your favourite film.

"This works for you? This is enough for you?" Jey asked. "Because it isn't for me."

You bit your lips, you'd expected this every time, you knew it would happen eventually. Jey was always going to find someone who could give him more than you could offer.

"What are you saying?" You asked. "You don't-you wanna end this?"

Jey got his knees and shuffled towards you, leaning up and cupping your face with his hands, his eyes level with yours. "I don't wanna end this." He said. "I wanna be with you."

"Jey," you whispered, hoping he could see in your eyes how much love you have for him. "I can't- We can't-"

"Ay, just listen." Jey said. "What if I came wit' you?"

You stared at him, speechless, your face still in his hands. "That's not funny."

"It ain't supposed to be funny."

"Stop it. You can't just say stuff like this, not in here, not like this when we're all caught up in the bubble!" You said, throwing your hands around. "You have your family here, a life here, you're just gonna leave it all behind?!"

"Didn't stop you." Jey retorted, and you rolled your eyes.

"That was different! I didn't pack up my life to follow someone across the country!" He smirked at you, making you roll your eyes a second time.

"Ay, you think highly of yourself, don't ya?" He joked, but you groaned and pulled his hands away from your face, putting your own over your face. "What if I ain't doin' it for you? What if I'm doin' it for me?" He asked. He pulled your hands from your face and held them. "I know you tell me not to, but I wait, babe. I wait for you to call, to text, I ask your parents when you're comin', so I can wait at the airport for you. I don't wanna wait anymore, I wanna be wit' you, for real, and you can't stay."

You bit the inside of your cheek, refusing to let yourself smile, and you turned your back on him, sitting back down on the bed. He was saying all the right things, wearing your favourite smile, and it was hard to be logical right now. This was never an option, because what if he ended up resenting you? Having Jey sporadically in your life through the year was better than the alternative.

Jey ran his hands up and down your arms, planting little kisses on your shoulder and neck. "Jus' think about it, babe." He whispered in your ear as he kissed your neck. "We can have more than jus' weekends." His hands slid over your skin, grazing your breasts as he followed a path down to your stomach, sending shivers through your whole body. "We can do this-" His hand slipped into your underwear, teasing you. "-whenever we want."

You tilted your head back, leaning it against his shoulder as he nibbled your neck, and you hummed, bucking your hips in an attempt to get his fingers exactly where you needed them. He clicked his tongue before he dug his teeth into your neck, a moan escaping your mouth as his fingers teased your entrance.

His hard cock was pressed against your back, and as he played and teased you, you reached around and grabbed his cock. He rutted against your hand, moaning into your neck as you stroked the long length, the action making him push two fingers inside you. They moved inside you, matching the pace of your hand on his cock; when you slowed down, he did, and when you quickened the pace, he did too.

Jey upped the ante, his thumb flicking over your clit, making your hips buck, your grip on his cock tightening, making it twitch. Jey groaned into your shoulder, and when you ran your thumb over his tip, he pulled away from your hand. "Nah, you're gonna make me cum." He mumbled into your shoulder. He kissed your skin again, before pulling his fingers out of your cunt, making you whimper pathetically. You watched as he slipped off the bed and pushed you backwards on the bed before getting on his knees. "Gotta remind you what you'll be missin' if you leave without me." He smirked, burying his head in between your legs.

You moaned loudly as he flattened his tongue against your cunt, slowly licking every part of you. He quickened the pace, and just as you arched your hips, he pinned them against the bed, while pushing two fingers inside you, his tongue flicking and sucking your clit. This was euphoric, you writhed underneath him as he drove you wild. Jey knew exactly what he was doing and his plan was working, you knew that he could ask you for anything right now -doing that thing with his tongue- you'd say yes to anything and everything.

"So wet for me." He muttered against you, nibbling the inside of your thigh as he fucked you with his fingers. All you could do was gasp and moan as he didn't give you a moment to breathe, sucking your clit and fucking you with his tongue. You tried to hold out, to delay your orgasm, but it wasn't long before you let yourself go, bundling the sheets in your hands as your thighs gripped his head.

Jey pulled back and crawled up your body, his thick, hard cock grazing your cunt, making your body twitch. He grinned down at you, his beard glistening with your juices, his dark eyes full of lust and you pulled him down by the chain around his neck for a kiss, your tongues dancing with each other as you ran your hands down his toned back. He rubbed his cock against your cunt, and you bucked your hips against him. "Fuck me, Jey." You managed to gasp, and he grinned at you, his eyes darkening more. He grabbed your wrists with one hand and pinned them above your head, forcing you to maintain eye contact as he pushed his cock inside you, moaning with you as your cunt tightened around him.

Your moans were lost in Jeys mouth as your bodies rocked together, your kisses getting rougher and more passionate. His free hand playing with your breasts, switching between them, refusing to let your hands free. "Such a good girl, takin' my cock like this." He grunted and you threw your head back as he attacked your neck once again. Your orgasm was bubbling up inside you, your legs beginning to shake as he fucked you harder and deeper, his own orgasm imminent. He brought his lips back to yours, the kiss slower, but not less passionate, and when he let go of your hands to grip your hips, you wrapped your arms around his neck, deepening the kiss.

"Shit, baby, I'm so close." He groaned, burying his head into the crook of your neck, his thrusts getting harder. You rolled your hips making his cock twitch inside you, and in all the bliss and passion as your orgasm washed over you like a tsunami, three words slipped out of your mouth.

"Come with me." You whispered, nibbling his earlobe. "So close." He repeated, and you grabbed his head, making him look at you.

"No Jey, come with me." You said, and he looked in your eyes, he flashed you that beautiful smile -one that could light up a starless night sky. You nodded, and he kissed you, just as his own orgasm hit, and he thrusted into you a few more times, his moans being caught by your mouth.

He dropped onto you; his body like a welcome weighted blanket, and you wrapped your arms around him as he lay on your chest. "Did ya mean it?" He asked quietly. You ran your fingers through his hair, and thought about what you said. You hadn't meant to say it, especially in that moment, it had just slipped out. You also hadn't meant to confirm it was in fact, what you meant. But you meant it with your whole heart, and you knew as soon as Jey voiced it as an option, you knew you couldn't leave him behind again.

"I mean it, Jey. I've never meant anything more."

[kradogsrats]

So I just wanna talk about this and the Sea of the Castout for a sec:

Here's the Sea of the Castout and its surroundings on the map:

We have the Sparklepuff Squad coming from the north down one of the rivers (red arrows), and the Dragang coming from either the east... or there is a slight possibility that Finnegrin, not having any particular urgency about getting there, chose to go all the way around the Far Reaches to give Callum some time to think things over.

(Could he have taken it even slower and gone all the way around to enter past the ruins of Elarion, thereby putting the statues of Aaravos and the Merciful One there? My opinion is that at that point Sea Legs would have to be going fast enough that the speed would be hard to ignore. The Ruthless is similar to a sloop and so would probably have a normal cruising speed of around 6-8 mph. Sea Legs can supposedly go faster than that, but sailing around to approach the Sea of the Castout from the southwest would add like... rough estimate 100 miles or more to the trip, so either they take an entire day or more doing only that or Sea Legs is going at constant top speed and that speed is really fucking fast.)

As the Dragang make their way into the Sea, we can still see the rocky horizon behind them, but not ahead:

Claudia and Terry, however, can see the shoreline in at least three directions from the center:

We also cannot see the opposite shore when Claudia enters the water:

Assuming you can see the same distance in Xadia as you can here on earth (which is a big assumption, but also a reasonable one to make), that's about 3 miles—as in, the furthest away you can see something as tall as you are before the curvature of the earth obscures it is about 3 miles. However, the rocky sides of the Sea of the Castout are a lot taller than any of the characters, so they can be seen from further away. Based on extremely unscientific googling, the Sea of the Castout is probably in the range of 20-30 miles-ish across, which is consistent with the fact that it's around the same size on the map as the distance between Katolis castle and the Moon Nexus, and that's a reasonable distance for the trio to have gone in the time it takes them to get there.

We also have a shore that looks like this oh god don't look too closely at it, that's a horrible render:

Now, you may consider how much of the edges of the Sea of the Castout appears to be mountainous, then look at the map again and wonder what the hell is going on. Well, first of all, those aren't mountains.

The basin of the Sea of the Castout was presumably created by a catastrophic impact. If it's based visually on a real place, I'd bet it's somewhere like Crater Lake in Oregon:

Crater Lake is a volcanic crater, not an impact crater, but same concept applies: instead of being a natural point of low elevation in the landscape, it's a reservoir that was violently punched out of the ground. That elevated rocky horizon isn't mountains, it's the edge of the hole. Crater Lake is quite a bit smaller than the Sea of the Castout probably is (only 5-6 miles across), but the elevation between its surface and the caldera rim is about 1,000 feet, which looks plenty high.

Impact crater lakes do exist, of course, but they tend to be either a lot smaller or a lot older. On earth, all the impact craters the size of the Sea of the Castout are hundreds of millions of years old. Lakes formed in older craters are also more likely to have connected with the surrounding water features, similar to the Sea of the Castout. Crater Lake is less than 10,000 years old and not connected to any rivers or other lakes (unsurprising, given that it used to be the top of a mountain).

So yeah, it's absolutely possible that Aaravos is at the Sea of the Castout. But let's take a look at the opening:

Yes, that's definitely the same place as Aaravos. Is it literally the Sea of the Castout? Well, the thing is that every other time we see this place, it's in a very... metaphorical or symbolic context. Like the opening. Or here:

Or here:

We also have that Aaravos is kneeling practically on the surface:

Which suggests that either the "OG Aaravos was gigantic" theory is correct, or this is not a normal place where water and lakes behave normally. I'm not a huge (ha) fan of the giant Aaravos theory, but as I've said before... if I had a nickel for every Aaravos-related thing we all assumed was metaphorical but turned out to be literal, I'd have etc.

Basically, this is definitely a place that is connected to the Sea of the Castout thematically and possibly magically, but I don't think Aaravos is literally kneeling in the literal Sea of the Castout on the mortal plane of Xadia.

After all, where do the fabled Great Ones hide?

[seafoamreadings]

week of july 14th, 2024

these are written predominantly for the *rising* signs but they are also intuitively "channeled" enough that they should work for any dominant energy you have! (try your sun if you don't know rising, or more advanced readers can try moon, anywhere you have a stellium, etc and see what works best for you!)

aries: a much anticipated mars-uranus conjunction occurs with algol in your 2nd house this week. yes, it's scary vibes. so the warnings: beware head injuries, concussions, etc. your money may be at risk, or you may find yourself sacrificing some important values. on the bright side the energies can be strangely empowering from you. don't go starting trouble, but don't shy away from a fight (metaphorically. do very much avoid physical violence under this transit.) justice is on your side.

taurus: for you as for many, the mars-uranus conjunction is the major focal point of the week. in this scenario, do you see yourself as medusa or as perseus? algol is, probably quite unjustly, considered the "demon" star. it is the eye of medusa, gleaming furiously from her severed head. you may be victorious, you may be filled with righteous anger. it is important to behave in a way that keeps you safe, but otherwise, act accordingly.

gemini: while others tremble in fear waiting for the mars-uranus conjunction to come and pass, that transit occurs mainly behind the scenes for you, in the back of your mind or in dreams. however, do be very careful in/about isolated places like hospitals, prisons, etc. much more likely noticeable to you is the subsequent ingress of mars into your sign. it will likely be refreshing, invigorating, and energized from that conjunction.

cancerians: on the one hand, it may be best to stay out of even lovely social circles this week, in favor of keeping more or less to yourself. on the other hand, another capricorn full moon lights up your relationships later in the week. although relationship develop under such circumstances, this can certainly be done from afar as you enjoy your solitude in some warm, cozy lair.

leo: we are now on the cusp of most solar leo season. celebration is good - but probably better in private at this time. a soft launch, so to speak. the focus should be on the private life, not the public life, which can be completely unmanageable and unpredictable this week.

virgo: if you need to make a major life change, mars and uranus conjoining in your 9th house can give you the gumption you need to get it taken care of. with that said i would advise strongly against any travel at this time, especially if it is of a long distance variety, and i would be mindful that long distance relationships can be at a tipping point with this aspect - most likely not tipping in a direction you'll enjoy (sorry).

libra: some esoteric weirdness or even some form of grief may take up a big chunk of your week but otherwise all the auspices are quite good for librans now. if there is trouble at home, find a quiet place to stabilize. if there is trouble out in the world, let your home instead be your sanctuary. keep a reliable, steady home base, is the point, and the other chaos of the moment will pass easier.

scorpio: committed partnerships likely get put through the ringer this week. not just your significant other if you have one but a business partner, a best friend, etc. those things you really have some loyalty too. but if they stand this test, they are good as gold, solid and worth keeping.

sagittarius: you're not known for being a stickler for schedules anyway, but pre-existing routines and rituals are likely to get shaken up over this week. on the bright side, money situations may see improvements and mars finally moving into gemini is at minimum a relief, and more likely a nice little flirtation that might become more.

capricorn: so maybe it's not the most romantic period of your life or maybe your creative endeavors flop or even backfire. whatever, let it just be fun, don't hang your hat on it. on the bright side a full moon in your sign puts a nice glow on you and illuminates your best qualities, for yourself and for others to see.

aquarius: you are one of the signs that will most need to brace for this mars-uranus transit. don't fall prey to the bad press but at the same time, take it seriously. use it to empower yourself, not to wallow in a victim mentality, even if you are truly victimized (which i hope you are not!) it is not a week for major risks or anything too "out there."

pisces: you may find yourself quicker than usual to fly off the handle. avoid arguments and disagreements this week and resist any temptation to hide behind an internet persona or other form of anonymity. any writing you do for a little while should remain private, don't even text too much. instead put your focus on self care and building your home. you can get chatty and friendly again later.

[maraschinomerry]

How about a George Karim x reader where they have made it a routine to sneak into each other’s bedroom to cuddle when one of them can’t sleep (it started after one draining case) but they never told Lockwood and Lucy bc they knew they would never hear the end of it

I've Got Your Back

Pairings: George Karim x gn!reader

Content: emotional hurt/comfort, angsty conversations in fluffy situations, breakdowns, Lockwood being Lockwood

A/N: oh wow this one got away from me a bit 😅 I wanted to do something super fluffy originally, but with the idea of it starting after a bad case I ended up leaning into the angst, hope that's okay! If you'd prefer something soft please let me know and I'll happily write another

Word count: 3.5k

The first time you found yourself in George's room was after your first Type Two case as a member of Lockwood & Co. Type Ones were second nature to you by this point, but you'd never dealt with anything more severe without supervision. Safe to say, you'd come away shaken.

It had been hours since you'd all returned, exhausted, and made your way to your rooms, but sleep continued to evade you. You tried everything - quiet music, hugging your pillow, distracting your mind by making lists of random things, duvet on, duvet off, on your back, on your side… Finally, a little after 4am, you surrendered and dragged yourself down the stairs towards the kitchen for a glass of water. The house was still and silent, save for the ticking from the hallway clock. You only made it as far as the landing before your body gave up and you slumped onto the unforgiving wood of the bottom step, fighting back tears as your breathing grew quicker. Thank god everyone else was asleep so they didn't have to deal with you like this. They were all greatly experienced agents and from what they’d seen they were impressed by both your abilities and your unflappability, so it was slightly embarrassing how much this had affected you.

Like some kind of horrible universal retribution, the door beside you clicked open. You frantically wiped your eyes as George emerged from his dimly lit room. His hair was particularly dishevelled and he wasn't wearing his glasses… or trousers, for that matter. He blinked at you, a mixture of blindness and confusion.

"I'm so sorry," you whispered. There was a wobble in your voice that you prayed was less obvious than you thought. Perhaps you only noticed it because you were expecting to hear it, perhaps George would think you were just tired. "Did I wake you?"

He frowned. "No, why would you-" It suddenly clicked as he peered closer. "Have you been crying?"

"No." Something in his face encouraged your honesty: "Not quite."

George was motionless for a moment. Then, he pushed his bedroom door open a little further and gestured inside. "Okay, go and get comfortable, I'll make tea once I've been to the toilet. Give me five minutes, non-metaphorical." There was a pause. "Will you be okay until then?" What a thoughtful question. He was normally so blunt and rational, you hadn’t expected him to consider exactly what state you were in after such a short interaction, or certainly not to act on it like that. You sniffled but nodded, and the two of you passed within a breath of one another as you swapped places in his doorway. His hand ghosted across your back between your shoulder blades as he directed you in, barely there and yet somehow the only tangible thing in your world at that moment. Your breath caught in your throat. The sensation lingered long after his footsteps had padded down the stairs.

Left alone in George's room, you took the chance to look around properly. You'd seen inside before whenever you popped your head in to speak to him, but now you could take it all in - the lamp on top of his crowded bookshelf emitting a warm glow across the sage green walls, neatly folded stack of laundry waiting to be put away, oval mirror on the chimney breast making you uncomfortably aware of how much of a wreck you looked with puffy eyes and hair tangled in frustration. Everything about the room was so… so George.

He'd said to get comfy, but you couldn't help but feel like you were invading his personal space. After a rapid internal argument over whether to slink back to your own room, you decided that would be rude since George had invited you in and gone to make tea, so you settled awkwardly at the end of his bed, feet planted on the floor.

Five minutes later, as promised, George tiptoed back in with two steaming mugs, kicking the door closed behind him. You thanked him as you wrapped your hands around the one he offered, while he placed his on the bedside table and relaxed back against his pillows.

"You look like you're about to bolt," he observed. That wasn't inaccurate; you were right at the edge of the mattress, feet pointing to the door and heel bouncing anxiously. He softened. "Take up whatever space you need. And if you don't want to talk about whatever had you tearing up on the stairs, that's fine, but I'm right here if you do."

You brought your feet up to sit cross-legged and sipped your tea while you worked up the courage to tell the truth (it was such good tea, too, you didn't know how he always got it just right). George did the same, not pushing matters for a second.

Eventually, you felt a little more comfortable, knowing you weren't being scrutinised. You tried to find the words more than once, faltering each time. Still, George waited patiently. They came at last: "Tonight was my first proper Type Two. I know I dealt with some in training and it shouldn't bother me, but I can't stop thinking about everything that could have gone wrong and if something happened to one of you…" You'd only been with the agency a month, but already you considered Lockwood, Lucy and George family over even your own parents, who had seemed almost relieved when you moved away. They were far more supportive, more understanding of you as a person, more respectful of your Talent. You could never forgive yourself for being the reason they got hurt, or worse. The pace of your heartbeat started to pick up again, thundering in your chest and ears.

"Hey, listen, breathe with me," George said gently as he sat forward to get your attention. You didn't even realise you were starting to fall back into the thoughts, let alone that George had noticed, so before you knew it you were following his slow, deep rhythm. His eyes, dark and lined with exhaustion and concern, didn't leave yours. He spoke again as he guided you. "We're all okay, and the whole point of being a team is we have each other's backs. It's not all on you to keep us safe, we all have to help, but it is on us to make sure you don't end up physically or mentally at risk. So if anything like this happens again, I hope you feel like you can come to me. Preferably without having to sit outside first."

The last part made you giggle. "Deal. And the same goes for you, my door is always open."

George smiled. "Thanks. For now though, get some rest, we can't have you falling asleep on the job." At this, he pulled back the other corner of his duvet. Now it was your turn to blink in confusion. "There's plenty of room," he explained like it was perfectly obvious, "and I don't like the idea of you going back upstairs on your own. If you're okay with this, of course."

The blush that crept up his cheeks reflected the one you felt on yours, and you tried your best to act natural as you put your mug to one side and slipped under the covers. George kept a respectable distance, but the warmth of his body still radiated towards you and lulled you into a peaceful sleep.

You awoke to the first rays of daylight filtering through an unfamilar window. As your eyelids fluttered open, you found yourself in an unfamiliar bed with an unfamiliar light pressure across your stomach and back. Cautiously, you turned your head. George was pressed up against you, face buried in your hair and arm draped across you. Your legs were so tangled it was hard to feel where you ended and he began. In the back of your mind you knew you should leave, get back to your own room before Lockwood or Lucy came and found you together, but this was the most relaxed you'd felt since becoming an agent. Besides, if you waited, George could check the coast was clear without arousing suspicion. That was a good enough excuse to stay. You brought your hand up, linking fingers with the boy's hand that hung across your stomach. A hum of contentment sounded from within your hair, echoing through your skull. You fell asleep once more with a lazy grin.

—

It happened a few more times over the next few months. You'd sneak into each other's rooms for comfort or company - it wasn't always about being scared or anxious after a case, just if one of you was having trouble sleeping or needed your mind taking off anything from research to thoughts about your family to whether you'd forgotten something on the grocery list. The two of you knew how each other ticked so it was easy to offer reassurance or support, and ending the night in each other's arms quickly grew to be one of your greatest comforts. George was an unusual sleeper, switching between curling up on his side and splaying across the whole bed like a starfish, but you found that no matter what, you were always able to slot against him like it was the most natural thing in the world. On most occasions you were the little spoon so that George could spread out behind you if he needed to, but even if he was in your arms and wriggled out, you would just snuggle back into his side with your head on his chest. It had also become second nature to make sure both bedroom doors were closed when you were together so Lockwood and Lucy would never get the opportunity to spot you in passing or find one of your rooms empty and go searching in a panic. They'd be happy for you, of course they would, but they'd be utterly insufferable about it and you were pretty sure you'd end up having to burn the Thinking Cloth as a precaution.

—

One night, just shy of six months into your time at 35 Portland Row, you were awoken by a tapping which perfectly matched the secret rhythm you'd established with George. You gave a groggy greeting, letting him know you were awake. His curly-haired silhouette appeared as he nudged the door open, but didn't move any further into the room. Normally he’d have been straight over, so his stillness set alarm bells blaring but you suspected you already had an explanation.

You'd become separated from the group on the case earlier that night. It hadn't bothered you at all, in fact you didn't even know it had happened until Lockwood told you later: you'd gone through a hatch in the corner of the kitchen to the basement, rummaging through boxes for the Source, and the rest of the group had moved through to the dining room when the kitchen door slammed shut behind them and refused to budge. For a terrifying moment, all they could think of was you, alone with a Visitor. As it turned out, it had locked you away to give them less backup, not the other way round, and they fought it off while you were completely oblivious (though you did manage to contain its Source). The team had told you what happened but having not been in the moment you hadn't been as rattled by it.

"George?" you asked into the darkness. When he didn't respond, you moved to him. Up close he was easier to see, a sliver of light from the hallway catching the edges of his features. His eyes were wide, lower lip trembling as he took one shaky breath after another. Actually, his entire body was trembling.

"Oh, Georgie," you murmured, heart breaking a little. You reached out to him. He flinched until his eyes refocused and he saw it was you, then immediately pulled you into a crushing hug. As his head buried in your shoulder he began to sob, and you wrapped your arms around him to rub soothingly at his back. Carefully, you closed the door with your foot and, still hugging him tightly, led him towards the bed. You had no choice but to pull away as you got into position, but took his hands to maintain the connection and as soon as you were leaning against the headboard he followed, crumpling against your chest. He mumbled something into your pyjama top, voice so quiet and broken by tearful hiccups that you didn't quite catch it.

"What did you say?"

He sat up, eyes fixed on your face like you might vanish if he so much as blinked. Somehow knowing that you hadn't heard him the first time made it harder to repeat. "I,  um... I said I was scared. What happened today made me realise how easy it would be to lose one of us, to lose you." The realisation hit you like a ton of bricks: he hadn't just come to you for comfort this time, he was here to make sure you were okay, that you were actually there and not just the product of a hopeful imagination. Not much wonder he was so much more physical than usual (eventual cuddling aside, he was never the touchiest person).

Taking the hint, you brought one hand up to cup his cheek. He leaned into the touch as you wiped away his tears with your thumb. Your other hand began to comb through his curls, brushing them away from his face. "I'm here, Georgie, see? I'm okay." He mimicked your movements, stroking your hair to prove your words to himself. "Remember what you said?" you continued. "We're a team, and I know you guys would have done everything you could." You both knew what you weren't saying - that even then, it might not have been enough, but that was the way of the job and the last thing you wanted was for him to blame himself. "And you did - you fought it off which kept it distracted, I never would have had time to find the Source without you."

"And we'd still be fighting it now if you hadn't kept looking. You had our backs too." This was good. That wonderful, logical brain of his was fighting back against the panic. If he could out-reason someone as headstrong as Lockwood, which you'd seen him do more than once, he could do the same to himself. He'd stopped crying at least, but he was still almost vibrating with energy and in no position to take the lead.

You shifted down the mattress until your head was on the pillow and opened your arms. George looked dazed, not processing what you were doing. In fact, he almost seemed to be receding into his oversized T-shirt. He was in a worse state than you'd first thought, too deep in his own mind to clamber out on his own. No amount of baseless reassurance would help at this point. You sighed. "Look, I know there's not really anything I can say that will convince you everything's okay." Something flickered behind his eyes. "The fact is, nothing's ever really okay in a job like this, and that sucks. We have good and bad days, but it's inevitable that something's going to happen to one of us eventually, whether that's on a case or entirely unrelated."

"This is the worst motivational speech ever," George muttered, and you couldn't help but snort. If he was making snarky remarks, that meant he was coming back into himself. You stayed laying down, but reached up and took his hand. He squeezed once, firmly, before settling into a loose grip with his thumb massaging small circles on the back of yours.

"If you'd let me finish, what I'm trying very unsuccessfully to say is that you're never going to be to blame. I know how important your research is to you and you do such an amazing job, honestly we'd be far worse off without you, so the fact that there are so many things in life that we can't change or prevent no matter how prepared we are... that's terrifying," you paused as your voice cracked at the thought, a hidden anxiety of your own unveiled, "but you don't have to deal with it alone. If all this is just fate or circumstance, isn't it a good sign that the universe has given us the people who matter enough that we're willing to try anyway?"

You had no idea where you'd been going with that, blindly trying to find a way to be encouraging without avoiding the root of the issue. You just had to hope that it would resonate with George in the right way and not push him further into the darkness. Every nerve in your body was on high alert, waiting for his reaction.

He moved.

You held your breath.

He folded into your arms with a faint but genuine smile. "Yeah, it is pretty good."

Your entire body relaxed. Hesitantly, testing the waters, you placed a soft kiss into his curls. All these nights in such close proximity had made you especially fond of the scent of his shampoo - lemongrass, paired with a sandalwood body wash - and you savoured the opportunity to breathe him in. "I can't be too mad at a world that lets us do this. No matter what it throws at us, we know it can't possibly mean it."

George squirmed a bit, and you were worried you'd gone too far with the kiss or said the wrong thing. But then he spoke. "Can we switch? Just so I can see you." That made sense. It would be more apparent that you were alright that way, plus you couldn’t deny you loved how safe his embrace made you feel. You let go, both turning together until it was you in his arms. As you stilled, you felt warm breath against the back of your head followed by equally warm lips.

As the pull of sleep grew stronger, George thought fondly about the people the universe had given him. There was you, constant and calming, the reason for his worry and the solution for it. There was Lucy, who from the offset had matched him in wit and eventually in devotion to their friendship. And of course, there was Lockwood, his best friend and the real reason you were all here, universal intervention or not. Lockwood, who could annoy him from across the corridor or appease him from the other end of the house. Actually, that was something. Not once since this started had Lockwood, with his blatant disregard for normal hours and habitual need to throw things at George's door, accidentally barged in on the two of you together. Perhaps the universe was involved after all.

—

Lucy, clad in a blue jumper over her pyjamas and the fuzziest socks she owned, raised her hand to knock on your door, wondering if you were awake to lend her some paracetamol from the little first aid box in your wardrobe as she'd run out and had a splitting headache. She would be surprised if anyone could sleep on a night like this, it was bitterly cold out on the landing and your room wouldn’t be much better unless you’d managed to steal one of the blankets from the library. A second before her fist connected with the wood, a hand grabbed her wrist and she turned defensively. A fully dressed Lockwood hastily released his grip and raised a finger to his lips in a silent hush. He nodded down the landing, leading her away to where they could speak without causing a disturbance.

"What's going on?" she frowned.

"You can't interrupt. George is in there."

Lucy's eyes almost bulged out of their sockets. "How do you know?! Wait, are they...?"

He stifled a laugh and shook his head. "No, no, it's just a comfort thing. They've been doing it for months."

"Okay, that only answers the second question."

Lockwood thought back, relaying the tale as he went along. He'd gone to check on you that very first night, wanting to make sure you weren't too affected by the Type Two. Seeing your door ajar and room empty had been enough to make him nervous, and not being able to find you in the kitchen, library or basement made matters worse. As a last resort, he barged into George's room, ready to ask if the other boy had been told of your plans or heard any movement to suggest you'd gone out. The sight he'd been met with had simultaneously quelled his nerves and set them alight - you and George, fast asleep in each other's embrace. Thank goodness Lockwood was so light on his feet and averse to knocking. He crept back out, vowing to always make sure in future that you were in your respective rooms before following through on his beloved pastime of winding George up.

[girlactionfigure]

Dastardly David, Gentleman Goliath and the Underdog Syndrome

It’s natural to cheer on the underdog – after all, who can’t help but encourage the plucky young bloke taking on a vastly more experienced and far bigger pugilist in the ring, only to win through sheer determined effort and some clever moves, whilst he leaps nimbly from foot to foot?

The classical underdog story is David and Goliath; the former, a fresh-faced youngster with nothing but a slingshot, standing up to the barbarian behemoth Goliath covered in armour and wielding a giant sword. The irony is that David is a young Jew and Goliath an older Philistine, and today we have the positions reversed with David being the poor, battered Philistine standing up to the incredibly powerful Israeli Goliath.

Naturally, the uninformed will want to root for David since all he has to counter Goliath’s weapons are some AK47 rifles, a few machine guns and some harmless rockets. Goliath, on the other hand, has a fearsome array of weapons, including laser-guided 2,000lbs bombs, tanks, drones, F-35 aircraft and that’s just for breakfast. The brave Philistine fighters are putting up a valiant fight against their arch-nemesis and oppressor, who despite his incredibly overwhelming and ferocious weapons has apparently failed to beat him to the ground.

Let’s drop the metaphor, since we are basically past it at this juncture. All the supporters of the Gazans would have you believe is that Israel is wantonly slashing and burning its way through Gaza, killing everything in sight and razing every building it sees to the ground. Ever since the grotesque, libelous letter was published by the Lancet (https://x.com/daniepstein_com/status/1810322594215628816), the civilian death toll has sky-rocketed from the original and already ludicrous figure of 37,000 (debunked here: https://x.com/daniepstein_com/status/1808866740727578891) to a stratospheric 186,000.

Is Israel a hulking, destructive and mass-murdering Goliath? Are Hamas and ordinary Gazans embroiled in active fighting a fresh-faced David? Let’s see.

On the 6th of October 2023, there was still a cease-fire between Israel and Hamas. No-one seriously expected a direct attack on Israeli soil; hence people went about celebrating Shabbat and Simchat Torah as usual, and a peace music festival was held in a field less than 2km from the Gaza border. When the attack commenced, the police, army and other forces had a hard time believing it was actually happening.

By the time the full extent of the horror was understood, 1,200 lives had been in lost in a brutal spree of pillaging, raping, murdering, torturing and hostage-taking. Israel and World Jewry was in shock. Not since the mind-numbing inhumanity of the Holocaust had Jews experienced such a horrific episode. The carnage, the delight terrorist took in their appalling, revolting attack was simply incomprehensible.

Needless to say that accompanying the shock and grief was a seething rage. Despite having given Gazan’s autonomy in 2005 at the ignominious expense of over 10,000 Jews, all that the so-called Palestinians (https://x.com/daniepstein_com/status/1811151386425577479) had repaid in gratitude was death, destruction and violence. This was the final straw.

At this juncture, Israel had a casus belli of epic proportions. They could have quite rightly razed Gaza to the ground in their attempts to retrieve their hostages and wipe Hamas off the face of the earth. Moreso, GoPro videos that Hamas themselves published online showed Gazans in civilian clothing participating in the massacre. Whilst this did not make all the Gazan civilians complicit, it certainly broadened the scope of culpability. After all, now they were seeking much more than simply the estimated 45,000 Hamas terrorists; now they were after thousands of Gazans who either participated directly in the slaughter, took civilians hostage or dragged their bodies through the streets.

It's worth considering what the IDF brings to the table in terms of military capability. The air force alone consists of over 300 aircraft gen-4 and gen-5 fighters, equipped with Israeli-developed avionics and sensors unique to the IDF, capable of launching sophisticated missiles and guided gravity munitions. They have hundreds of tanks and artillery pieces, 169,000 active personnel and a reserve army of roughly 465,000. The Israeli Navy has a slew of sophisticated surface and submarine vessels capable of firing shells and launching missiles from great distances. Given the will on the part of the Israelis, Gaza could have been flattened into rubble in a matter of a couple of hours; by the time the world would have commenced protesting, the strip would have been a smoking ruin, its citizens bombed to kingdom come.

Yet this did not happen. Much everyone’s surprise, the Israeli government sat on its haunches for three weeks. Some small operations were carried out almost immediately, but the full ground invasion took three weeks to mobilise. During that process, the IDF formulated a plan that would require the mass movement of citizens in the strip, and in order to execute this plan they undertook heretofore unheard-of steps to prevent as many civilians dying as possible, employing leaflet drops, robocalls, text messages and direct calls by specially trained IDF members. Israel has formidable electronic capabilities that according to John Spencer, Chair of Urban War Studies at the MWI, West Point, no other army has. They employed all of these in their efforts to prevent a slaughter.

As the war drew on, the IDF realised that Hamas were using the IDF’s strengths and morality against them, ensuring higher casualties than were predicted. For example, Hamas prevented their own citizens from following evacuation orders in order to use them as human shields (https://reuters.com/world/middle-east/hamas-tells-gaza-residents-stay-home-israel-ground-offensive-looms-2023-10-13/); when people were evacuating Hamas shot at them. When the IDF attempted to shield the evacuees, Hamas attacked the soldiers protecting the civilians. Hamas even faked IDF leaflets telling citizens that evacuation corridors were only for emergencies. When it comes to distributing aid, Hamas are not below hijacking the lorries and preventing their own people from accessing food, hygiene supplies and other basic requisites. People who protested that Hamas had gone too far should surrender were beaten or shot. There is nothing new about this; when Hamas took over the Gaza strip in 2007 they engaged in fratricide at an appalling level (https://theguardian.com/world/2007/jun/15/israel4), and they have consistently used their own citizens as human shields (https://stratcomcoe.org/cuploads/pfiles/hamas_human_shields.pdf).

In order to counter these tactical abuses of civilians, the IDF developed new strategies, employing sophisticated electronics to scan known Hamas phones, using long range ID systems and filtering civilians for terrorists using human intelligence.

Hamas in the meanwhile were abusing every possible law they could; aside from holding civilian hostages captive (including babies) as bargaining chips, they fought the IDF in civilian clothing from inside civilian structures. The Gaza Metro – a network of over 600km of tunnels – allowed them to pop out almost anywhere, from under houses, mosques, hospitals and schools, run into a building and break out the weapons cached there. They would manoeuvre into position, take some shots and then drop their weapons to join the civilians in the area. Almost every building the IDF has entered has contained weapons; even protected status buildings such as hospital, schools and mosques are riddled with armaments and explosives (https://cbsnews.com/news/israel-photos-hamas-gaza-weapons-un-facilities-including-schools/ https://youtube.com/watch?v=7gLABy9s8Zc https://thecipherbrief.com/a-look-inside-hamass-weapons-arsenal). Hamas are not beyond using captures Israeli uniforms to disguise themselves as IDF soldiers, allowing them to manoeuvre in the open. They cynically baited the IDF into believing a WCK convoy was a Hamas one by firing off guns from on top of the vehicles (https://breitbart.com/middle-east/2024/04/06/report-hamas-may-have-baited-idf-into-striking-wck-convoy-in-error/). If there is a humanitarian or warfare law or custom that Hamas has not broken, it is because it is so obscure that practically no-one has heard of it.

All of this has slowed down the progress of the IDF. Instead of taking days, the war to date has been dragged out for almost nine months at the time of writing. Whilst the death toll of Gazans has been enormously exaggerated (https://x.com/daniepstein_com/status/1808866740727578891), the destruction has been widespread. At least 16% of Gaza lies in ruins. Whatever economy they had prior to the 7th has essentially evaporated. It will be a decade at least before they have a chance to enjoy self-rule, and since Israel will certainly not rebuild Gaza and perhaps claim reparations as well, the reconstruction will progress at snail’s pace.

This does beg the question: what did Hamas have in mind when they attacked Israel on the 7thin such a brutal, barbarian and animalistic fashion? Did they not expect a response of these proportions?

To answer this, some background of the situation must be fleshed out. On the 6th, Israel was a terribly divided country, across political and religious lines. Proposed changes to the judiciary led to mass protests, and Yom Kippur prayers in the centre of Tel Aviv were disturbed by a small rabble. The country was deeply mired in conflict, and even a group of soldiers refusing to serve in protest, which came as a shock to a country whose army is almost sacrosanct.

Hamas and probably the IRGC as well saw this as a serious opportunity to hit Israel hard, expecting an overwhelming attack to weaken Israel’s morale sufficiently to perhaps mount several more such incursions. In the past, Israel’s response to Hamas terror ranged from weak to lukewarm. Operation Cast Lead (2008–2009) ended after three weeks with a mutual ceasefire; the conflict resulted in roughly 1,400 Palestinian and 13 Israeli deaths. Some 46,000 homes were destroyed, making more than 100,000 people homeless. Operation Protective Edge 2014 lasted for seven weeks with 2,000 Gazan deaths and a total of six Israeli civilians who were killed as a result of the conflict. Neither operations resulted in a decisive victory.

What is clear is that Hamas never expected such wide-spread devastation. Instead, they probably forecast another short war with Israel in disarray. Hamas would mount several incursions, capture as many hostages as they could during the operations and then withdraw to negotiate for thousands of prisoners in Israeli jails to be freed. They would be able to flee to their tunnels at any time, making the process of hunting them down almost impossible.

This plan backfired horribly for Hamas. From the very first moment, they broke every rule of armed conflict. The bestiality and brutality of the attack achieved the exact opposite of what they expected. Not only did it shake Israel out of its torpor, but it also united the country and world Jewry in a way they had never been united previously.

Within a matter of days, reservists responded with a 140% turnout; commanders were frustrated at the lack of readily available equipment for their soldiers since no-one predicted such a response. As of 9th April 2024, donations from the Diaspora raised $1.4 billion (https://timesofisrael.com/donations-to-israel-since-october-7-topped-1-4-billion-government-reports/) and Israel Bonds sales raised a further $1.7 billion.

Israel now swore to do what they had never done before: utterly destroy Hamas. However, they made it clear that this was not going to be revenge, it was going to be justice.

Where Hamas broke every possible rule and acted like rabid barbarians, Israel took every possible step to reduce collateral damage and the expected carnage. Where Hamas simply raped, butchered and pillaged, Israel kept the IDF on a tight leash. Soldiers had very strict rules of engagement and monumental efforts were undertaken to keep civilian life functioning as well as possible under war conditions. As John Spencer writes (https://x.com/SpencerGuard/status/1812183672734589372): “Israel has gone above and beyond what is traditionally required of armies. In Gaza, they faced 40,000 enemy defenders in dense urban terrain featuring some 400 miles of deep buried military tunnels a depth of 15 to over 200 feet deep purposely built under civilian and protected sites. The defenders were equipped with over 15,000 rockets and a full array of small arms, mortars, and improvised explosive devices. The enemy had defenses that took at least fifteen years to prepare and fortify. Hamas held over 200 hostages, disguised themselves as civilians, and used ordinary Gazans as human shields to manipulate external actors, especially the United States, to stop Israel from escalating and instead to push for a ceasefire. Largely because of Egypt, there was almost no possibility for the 2.2. million civilians in Gaza to completely flee the war zone by land.”

Ultimately, Israel at war is the consummate gentleman; moral, considerate and firm in its mission to protect its people. Hamas, conversely, are the very embodiment of evil, with a callous disregard for its own people and cynically abusing the laws and customs of war for their own nefarious gains. Hamas is no fresh-faced David with his little slingshot. Hamas is a wildly immoral and bestial death cult with absolutely no regard for the very people that elected them.

Despite all this, the world does not see Hamas in its true light. Gazans are painted as innocent victims who are suffering under the brutality of the Israeli war machine. The appalling crimes against humanity that Hamas committed are either brushed under the carpet or denied outright, despite the copious evidence supplied by Hamas themselves. The incredible efforts of the IDF to prevent civilian casualties, and the unspeakable attacks Israel suffered are not simply ignored but distorted all out of recognition.

Why is this? How is it that the picture has been so successfully reversed?

Behind all of the various theories that might explain this is the IRGC and other bad actors, as discussed in this post: https://x.com/daniepstein_com/status/1807676708734042189.

What allows these machinations to succeed is partially due to the nature of people wanting to cheer on the underdog. This is the cognitive dissonance of beer glasses – the mind only shows you what you want to see, not what you actually observe. It is also the fact that Jew-hatred has festered at every level since the very founding of Jewry, and this war has allowed Jew-haters across the globe to sanitise their anti-Semitism through the filter of anti-Zionism, which they then vomit onto their sheeple audiences through the medium of social media. The confluence of these impulses results in a narrative that paints the victim as the oppressor, and elevates raping, murdering, butchering and hostage-taking barbarian troglodytes to near-sainthood.

This is not a David and Goliath conflict. This is a conflict of barbarianism versus civilisation.

And it’s coming to the West.

[spicyboelives]

i just came across your phantom art and it has infiltrated my bloodstream….…. i am now Addicted, it’s SO good. which is i’ve come here to humbly ask……. would you please give us some lore/backstory for your version of the story……. (if not that is okay, have a good day 🦉)

Sure! I only have a few points though, as the majority of the story would stay the same.

Firstly I think Meg Giry and Christine (hes trans and he kept his OG name) would still be thick as thieves, though her characterisation would be more true to the books. So a bit spoiled and rowdy but well meaning.

Erik would be envious of their friendship, but as hes protective of the theater and to an extent the younger dancers I doubt he'd be aggressive to her.

Eriks disposition here is closer to Charles Dances portrayal than Gerard Butlers. As he truely feels he has 0 chance (like the probablity of him sucessfully getting someone to look past his features AND be gay with him is low in his opinion). Though he would be fiercely over protective and seethingly jealous when Raoul showed up- (Raouls is chill but would run the risk of outting Christine).

Christine for his part, would likely be jumping all over this sewer dwelling man. From his POV hes given him a ton of attention, skills to advance his career, and i dont think would be put off from the mask or scars at all. Given that he often has to hide his true self out of fear of others reactions too.

Im pretty sure in the orginal story theres a ton of metaphors about Christine comings of age as a young woman but imo im skipping that and just pushing the metaphors moreso in the direction of: sextuality/societal expectations/class privileges and ✨friendship✨.

&Evertime Erik sings to Christine its with a sicknass electric guitar but when he sings to others he uses traditional instruments.

This is to signify how their relationship would be considered out of place & unaccepted in their time period, though never the less it is sick as fuck

[liesmyth]

Honestly considering John's bitterness about having to forgo scientific study of necromancy originally it makes incredible amounts of sense on how the whole unhealthily obsessed academic attitude seems to be idealized for necromancers and at least an academic *focus* seems to be appreciated.

Like. The fandom mostly talks about John's Imperialism and Catholic Aesthetic in contrast to his human life, which, fair, it's a bit more relevant, but sometimes i just pause and realize: oh. John Gaius and his duplicitous sluts got to influence and direct the development of a whole society. Forgot about that.

Like. I know if he had the time to actually study before doing anything he wouldn't have gotten his necropowers in the first place, but sometimes i like to think about what john could've done if he had... Idk, not a low stress environment because research is stressful, but a chill decade or so to just explore that

OK but actually, I'm not that sure that's the case for post-Res John. He seems much more invested in maintaining the Houses within a state of cultural stagnation than he is in research.

I think the Canaan House era was all about scientific study, like John said in HtN, they "discovered the scientific principles." But not all of those were shared with the population of the Houses! It's been ten thousand years, and nobody in the House could conceive of something like Teacher, who Anastasia made within the first 200 years post Resurrection, with the "normal" amount of necromantic aptitude of a mortal, not of a Lyctor.

There's the constant implication that there has been very little innovation in ten thousand years of history. When Abigail says "there is a lot we don't understand about the River" she also calls the current state of research on the Fifth "stifled, stultified, complacent." She talks about it like it's a somewhat contemporary issue, but I believe it's gone on for longer than that. The Sixth have been mapping consanguinity lines for generations, but I don't think their obsession with genetic diversification has brought anything of note. It's like going to university to study maths, but the curriculum stops at the very beginning of elementary calculus and nobody has gone further in millenia.

We know that the Lyctors have delved into some areas of necromancy, like Augustine and the River, but that research hasn't been shared with the Houses even on a theoretical level. We know there's a constant feeling that the Houses are throwing around accusations that some avenues of necromancy are "heretical", even if the one guy who could clear up once and for all what's heresy hasn't bothered speaking up.

I agree with your last half - I think that in a much different story where a random guy gets chosen by the soul of the earth to receive divine powers and maybe the situation is less stressful, it could have been a net good for humanity instead of the end of the world. But in terms of John encouraging a scientific approach to necromancy post-Resurrection, I think he (and the Lyctors, maybe) have actually done the opposite. I'm not sure how intentional it is vs. how much it's a metaphor but the Houses are the opposite of a thriving society, culturally. It's all so stifled and stale, a civilisation in suspended animation.

[finalfrontierpublishing]

A Great and Gruesome Height by @moku_youbi. 

So this bind was a wild ride, with experimentation galore. It’s my 10th bind (HURRAY) and I started this bind knowing I wanted to play with thread, given I had so much fun with the stab binding. I had some red thread which i had originally purchased for the VTE bind - and just the right shade i was going for so i went for it.  

the original idea i was going for was ‘red thread of fate, but make it MURDER’ and so this tidy little concept was born. half way through the design conceptualization phase i had a little epiphany while watching season 3 of hannibal that blood spatter stringing was ALSO red thread and i just couldn’t resist (yes i know hannibal’s little murder tableaus seldom have blood but the string! MORE STRING!) 

More photos under the cut. 

Statistics: 

115559 words || 426 pages

Body Text: Crimson Text 

Chapter Headers: Cormorant Garamond

I quite like the experimentation with body fonts and trying to divert away from regular Garamond. So far, I’ve only used Baskerville, Garamond, Liberation serif and Cardo, but I do like this one. I lack the typography terminology but it feels fancy and posh and something Hannibal would enjoy. 

I also aggressively rounded this book - boy is it ROUND, perhaps a little too so. i had a difficult time getting the spine piece to be as round as I liked. 

Also, it was my first time putting a quote on the first few pages - i have zero regrets. Also featuring my new imprint page with AN ERROR (IT’S DECEMBER 2022 NOW OOPS). 

I didn’t have enough heat-reactive foil and this fic has 40+ chapters so I could only foil the last couple of chapters which were actually short mini-sequels to this fic which I also added in. I have to say, using a laminator over an iron for heat-reactive foil is MUCH superior. I didn’t have to work myself into a frenzy trying to get an even layer of foil on it. 

Endpapers are a little bunchy because of the thread. But i had to put butterflies because THE CHRYSALIS has hatched (i will never tire of hannibal metaphors).

See below for the conceptualization phase on cricut and er paper. I have zero art skills and have aphantasia so I had to print it out to try and figure out where everything needed to go. 

This bind is also the bind where I won my blood sacrifice badge - don’t use rusty tools guys. The spouse had borrowed my rotary cutter to cut wrapping paper for christmas wrapping and is RIGHT-HANDED. Self is LEFT-HANDED. Tool returned to me as is and I did not check if the blade protector was on the correct side as the tool will get flipped direction wise depending on the handedness of the user. So guess who needs to get a tetanus shot today? :joy:

 All in all, still a successful bind. It is a little busy, and if I had to do it again, I might not put the titling on the spine (always a little crooked, cause I roll that way). The Siser gold and silver metallic HTV for the hands fought me the entire way, and I’d probably not use it for such delicate lines - only part of it adhered and it made me very upset at first but since the bind is for myself it’s fine. 

I’d also use a thinner red thread next time (the thick waxed linen thread for leather work doesn’t fuck around, WILL NOT BUY AGAIN) because as you can see 3-4 rounds around the finger looks like it’s choking it and i had some space limitations at the edges. 

Well, a fun idea, with less than perfect execution but I’ll probably do it again one day if i ever summon up the courage to consider making this again (perhaps for the author if i get over my massive to-bind pile). PROBABLY NOT IN WHITE - gad WHITE IS SO SMUDGEY - nothing to remind you how dirty your hands are than white bookcloth. this is off-white pearl BUT fingerprint smudges!!! 

Resources: Page dividers made by evil-robot-cat here. 

EDIT: THE AUTHOR WANTS A COPY!!!!!!! AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH  🥳  😱 🫠 yessss AUTHOR COPY!!!! 

[lamprophonia]

》 [ yandere!Musician. ] 《

character intro. masterlist.

yan!musician x gn!reader: yandere alphabet. 2405 words. reader referred to as 'you'. cw for general yandere behavior — stalking, abduction, etc.

DO NOT USE OR REPOST MY WRITING ANYWHERE.

☆ A IS FOR AFFECTION. how do they show their love and affection? how intense would it get?

amir's main way of showing affection would be to start involving you in literally everything he does. he'd have the two of you attached at the hip in no time. boring meetings, random errands, lunch, events; he has a busy schedule, and although he makes plenty of time for you — as much as he can — he really wishes you could be around all the time.

and, of course, as he includes you in everything he does, that extends to his music. he considers you his biggest source of inspiration. outside of writing you songs, entire albums, if you'd like, he would absolutely adore being given the chance to serenade you.

☆ B IS FOR BLOOD. how messy are they willing to get when it comes to their darling?

amir isn't a very violent person. he doesn't want to be aggressive or do anything that would make him unworthy of your affection; he feels too manipulative at even suggesting you stop hanging out with someone because he doesn't like them. he might develop some brutal urges towards other people after developing and obsession with you, but he doesn't have any desire to give into them; hell, he'd find them shameful.

☆ C IS FOR CRUELTY. how would they treat their darling once abducted? would they mock them?

amir would probably never abduct you, but even if he's brought to the brink and snaps, absolutely not. would never be cruel to you and would be apologetic about the entire ordeal.

☆ D IS FOR DARLING. aside from abduction, would they do anything against their darling's will?

again, he would never want to abduct you, so this is just another plain no. the worst he'd do is drag you to a party or gig you're not hyped about, and even then, you can most definitely convince him to leave you at home. you'll just be getting spammed with 'this would be much more fun if you were here :(' texts.

☆ E IS FOR EXPOSED. how much of their heart do they bare to their darling? how vulnerable are they when it comes to their darling?

amir would be open about how intense his feelings for you are — hell, he might even refer to it as obsession — but he'd be very good at dressing it up in layer of metaphors, fancy words, and similes, making it sound less like an admission of something ultimately toxic and more like a confession of undying devotion. generally emotionally open when it comes to his emotions, especially the ones directed at you.

☆ F IS FOR FIGHT. how would they feel if their darling fought back?

absolutely heartbroken. amir would take it in stride if you weren't into any of his romantic advances, but inside, his world would be crumbling and falling apart at the seams.

at that point, he wouldn't immediately move to the point of abduction, but he would most definitely do everything in his power to keep you around as a friend, an acquaintance, an employee, even — whatever. he formed a creative dependency on you long before confessing; by the time you get a chance to reject him, the idea of being apart from you is already unbearable.

☆ G IS FOR GAME. is this a game to them? how much would they enjoy watching their darling try to escape?

amir would probably be mildly offended and hurt at the idea that this is a game for him. he considers the two of you soulmates, and he is serious about that.

same as with you rejecting him, amir would be absolutely heartbroken at you trying to leave him. that's probably where he would let the worst of his obsession shine through, trying to do anything to get you to stay.

what do you want from him? why are you leaving? is it money? has he not been spending enough time with you? is it something else? just tell him the problem, please, so he can fix it. he needs to fix it. the idea that there is no problem he can fix — maybe you just plain lost feelings or it's something else completely outside of his control — is his worst nightmare.

☆ H IS FOR HELL. what would be their darling's worst experience with them?

amir would, as opposed to leon, for example, be unwilling to let you see how life is without him. he would be around you at all times, and it would get smothering. you are the most important person in his life — he updates you on practically everything he does, every event in his schedule, every butterfly he saw that reminded him of you, for some fucking reason; everything.

and he'd expect you to do the same.

he wouldn't get angry if you didn't, though — this man quite literally believes you have never made a mistake in your life — he would just think that he's done something wrong, which in turn leads him to doing things more.

more gifts, more texts, more dates, gifts, flowers, updates; clearly, there's a problem here somewhere that he needs to fix. amir would never actually ask you if something was up; he'd just assume that there was, and that it's his job to find out what it is — most likely via following you around without your knowledge — and proceeding to absolutely smother you in affection until it fixes itself.

when does he determine that the issue is fixed? who fucking knows. even amir himself probably doesn't. until whenever that is, he will simply get more and more and more overbearing until even the act of you leaving after hanging out with him would send him into an obsessive spiral.

☆ I IS FOR IDEALS. what kind of future do they have in mind for/with their darling?

amir didn't really have a clear path for an ideal future; he was propelled into stardom without much preparation, and although he has some vague goals related to his music he wants to achieve, nothing is quite set in stone yet — or at least it wasn't until he met you.

now, those goals are still there, but you have overshadowed every single one of them. he only hopes to spend as much time as possible with you. absolutely willing to prioritize you over his work if it gets in the way of that.

if you said you always dreamt of getting married and having kids, he'd start looking for engagement rings and through lists of baby names. if you didn't want that, then he'd be perfectly content to just keep your relationship as is. despite the lack of clear ideas, amir is honestly excited for every new day when he's with you.

as long as you'll be there, he'll be happy. he's absolutely sure of that.

☆ J IS FOR JEALOUSY. do they get jealous? do they lash out or find a way to cope?

amir gets jealous; much more than he'd be willing to admit. he realizes it's unhealthy and desperately tries to keep it at bay, but seeing you — so perfect, a literal angel on earth — give your attention to anyone but him hurts.

he knows it shouldn't — you're a free person, you can do whatever you want, and he respects that — but he feels like he's getting stabbed whenever he sees you be even the slightest bit affectionate towards somebody else.

amir copes, though, realizing lashing out would probably be the last thing you want from him. he'd hate to upset you — he wants to be worthy of your presence, your love, after all. just don't be surprised if he suddenly starts getting a lot more affectionate than usual after you exchange a hug or some smiles with someone else. even if they were just a friend.

☆ K IS FOR KISSES. how do they act around or with their darling?

incredibly affectionate. amir looks at you like you're a masterpiece, in or out of conversation. he has a tendency to go silent, just listening to every syllable that leaves your lips intently; this combined with the absent-minded staring sometimes makes it look like he's not listening at all.

that couldn't be farther from the truth, though. he learns and remembers every little detail about you, your hobbies, your favorite things in the world; storing it for later, for whenever there's the opportunity to gift you little trinkets and send you things that reminded him of you.

his hands are almost always on you in some way. holding yours fully or just keeping your pinkies interlocked, resting his chin on your head or your shoulder, wrapping an arm around your waist or shoulder. anything to keep you close. sucker for kisses on the cheek or temple, tiny little tokens of affection.

generally, amir is always trying to do more for you. he wants to prove he's worthy of your affection.

☆ L IS FOR LOVE LETTERS. how would they go about courting or approaching their darling?

after meeting you, amir will slowly but surely make his way into your life. sending you texts, reminders, anything that reminds him of you, until his presence is a constant in the back of your head. talking to you has become a step of his routine, sending you things over morning coffee or updating you during his lunch break.

whenever he's back from tour, he also makes sure to involve you in his plans. come hang out while he writes song lyrics, grab coffee with him when he's leaving the studio, or maybe be his plus one to a music festival he's been waiting for for months; any time spent with you is time well spent in his book.

by the time he asks you out on a proper date, it's not a surprise to you or anyone else around. he'll make sure it'll be a familiar and casual experience, wanting it to feel as comfortable for you as possible.

☆ M IS FOR MASK. are their true colors drastically different from the way they act around everyone else?

not really. amir is just honestly a pretty sweet person. he's got a mild-to-severe obsession that makes him extra affectionate to you, sure, but he is also just... genuinely nice to those around him. even his obsession comes from a sincere belief that the two of you are soulmates. meant to be.

☆ N IS FOR NAUGHTY. how would they punish their darling?

amir unironically believes you can do no wrong, so he straight up wouldn't. he is much more likely to believe that any coldness from your side is a result of some mistake that he's made, and he will quickly go into problem-solving mode. the mere idea of hurting you hurts him. he absolutely can not stomach it.

☆ O IS FOR OPPRESSION. how many rights would they take away from their darling?

none.

if amir ever got to the point of going completely off the rails and abducting you, he would do so with a heavy heart and be incredibly apologetic about it the entire time. he would want to take as little away from you as possible, trying to prove himself worthy of your grace, even then.

☆ P IS FOR PATIENCE. how patient are they with their darling?

amir would wait a few weeks before asking you out. he would spend around two or three months just cementing himself as someone in your life, as an option — a good option. the best, in fact. he wouldn't hide the fact he's interested in you romantically, but he'd take some time before asking you out immediately.

☆ Q IS FOR QUIT. if their darling dies, leaves, or successfully escapes, would they ever be able to move on?

any of those options would break amir beyond repair. if you left him romantically, he would fight for you to stay platonically as best he could. he's dedicated his life to you, whether that be reciprocated or not. he wouldn't ever find anyone else, though, and would probably be open about the fact that that's because he cannot find it in himself to get over you.

your death would be one of the worst things that amir could ever imagine. the idea of a life spent without you in any capacity is unbearable. it's his worst fear — a problem he can't fix, an issue completely out of his control. he can not confront the idea of doing everything right and still losing you.

☆ R IS FOR REGRET. would they ever feel guilty about abducting their darling? would they ever let their darling go?

absolutely yes and probably yes. it would take something giant for amir to snap and abduct you, and he would do so with an aching heart and constant whispers of apologies. if you can wear him down and play — or just genuinely be miserable enough, he would probably let you go quite easily.

☆ S IS FOR STIGMA. what brought about this side of them (childhood, curiosity, etc)?

blind delusion.

☆ T IS FOR TEARS. how do they feel about seeing their darling scream, cry, and/or isolate themselves?

amir would immediately go into problem-solving mode. probably not your guy when it comes to emotional support — won't really give you the time to collect and compose yourself before asking a barrage of questions about what the issue is — but to his credit, you can see he is absolutely trying to help.

seeing you in pain, screaming or crying, hurts him worse than he could ever express.

isolating yourself is not really any different, other than the fact that it will make him clingier than ever before, if you even thought that possible. the harder you push yourself away, the tighter he pulls you closer.

☆ U IS FOR UNIQUE. would they do anything different from the classic yandere?

amir's incredibly soft for a yandere... and in general. detests the idea of abducting or hurting you — physically or emotionally. he already feels more guilty than he'd ever care to admit about stalking, although he's able to excuse it with the fact he genuinely believes the two of you are soulmates.

☆ V IS FOR VICE. what weakness can their darling exploit in order to escape?

it would be all too easy to use amir's immense guilt to escape if he ever abducted you. he hates, hates, hates hurting you, and there's only so far his justifications can go.

hell, you wouldn't have to do much — just looking sufficiently miserable would be enough to break down his excuses one by one, slowly but surely, but if you added... literally anything on top of that, he would break even faster.

telling him about how miserable he made you, telling him you hate him, or going the opposite route and trying to apologise to him for 'having to do this' — your words cut deeper than any knife could ever hope to. whatever route you choose to go with, he will fold eventually.

☆ W IS FOR WIT'S END. would they ever hurt their darling?

again, never. the very idea of you being hurt by anyone — worse, by him — makes his stomach churn.

☆ X IS FOR XOANON. how much would they revere or worship their darling? to what length would they go to win their darling over?

oh, amir is absolutely the reverent type. he considers you perfect, an angel or some kind of deity sent down to earth. as mentioned time and time again above, in his eyes, you can do no wrong.

he doesn't know who he has to thank for sending you down to meet him, but either way, you came into his life, and since then, he's been dedicated to winning your favor. since you've graced him with your presence, he wants to prove himself worthy of you, and he would do absolutely anything to achieve that.

☆ Y IS FOR YEARN. how long do they pine after their darling before they snap?

amir probably wouldn't ever feel the need to take and restrict his darling. it would take something big to make him snap. like, actually giant — you'd have to actually break his trust in some fundamental manner for him to even consider abducting you. it would be the reaction of someone not only completely lost in their obsession but also of someone who feels they've been pushed up against the wall.

☆ Z IS FOR ZENITH. would they ever break their darling?

if amir ever did end up breaking his darling, he would break himself in the process. the realization he caused something like that — that he destroyed the mind of the one person he loves more than anyone and anything else — would destroy him. the idea is unthinkable to him, and he'd avoid it at all costs.

[seeingteacupsindragons]

This may sound really dumb of me, but can you explain asexuality/aromance (?) to me?

I know it exists and I believe it’s totally valid, but a part of me always feels like I can’t really be inclusive or use inclusive language when I don’t understand it, because I’m afraid that not understanding it might lead to miscommunication and me accidentally offending someone

And the last time I asked someone in person they got mad at me „because I should know, I’m part of the queer community“ but all I ever heard is that it’s a spectrum? Which I don’t really understand

The way you communicate makes you seem like such a nice person, so I thought this would be a good place to ask 🫣😅

I think this is the first time I've been told I see like a nice person, but this is a lovely way to round out ace week when I haven't managed much, so let's do this.

Anyway, the jerk who said you should just. Know things. Is rude. You have to learn things at some point. It is true that some things you can find ways of learning yourself, or that you should have perquisites or are expected to know things before x, y, or z, but that's also just not helpful, so.

So let's start with definitions: Aromanticism and Asexuality don't mean the same thing, but they're related concepts.

Asexuality: The trait of experiencing sexual attraction never, rarely, or only under certain circumstances.

Aromanticism: The trait of experiencing romantic attraction never, rarely, or only under certain circumstances.

Those last two are how it's a "spectrum": there's more than one possibly manifestation or asexuality or aromanticism, and those spectrum identities are often called "gray aromantic" "gray romantic" "gray sexual" gray asexual", etc.

However, those identities generally have more in common with people who never experience sexual attraction that people who don't fit into this spectrum, so they're included. If someone only experiences sexual attraction when certain criteria are met, that means the rest of the time they don't, and they may have only recently or rarely even experienced attraction and started to understand that experience. Etc.

The next part of where people tend to get tripped up is that they thing of attraction as "wanting" something, but that's really not what it is. It's more of a compass that indicates what direction where you want to go is.

We're going to reuse the very common donut metaphor here. I'm not a big fan of it, but it's helpful for this.

People think of wanting a donut as "Oh, I want this donut, let's go get one," because that's how most people end up with a donut (or a relationship). But there are also people who are offered a donut, aren't real sure they want one, and they look at it and go, "Actually, yeah, that donut looks good." And that would be specific circumstances met! A-spectrum!

Or, they're offered a trip for donuts and go, "Actually, yeah, I could really go for a Boston Creme." That's someone who maybe doesn't usually think about donuts, but now that they're considering donuts, they're experiencing a desire for a specific donut. A-spectrum!

Or, they're just like, "You know, a donut sounds good right now," but has no specific opinion on creme filled or jelly filled or glazed or iced or whatever the hell. They're just like, "Donut. Please a donut." That's someone who who wants a relationship, but doesn't feel attraction. But that doesn't make their desire for a donut, or their happiness having the darn donut, any less real. A-spectrum!

So, it's perfectly possible to want sex or romance and not be attracted to someone. The wanting is not the same as the specifics, and attraction is in the specifics.

However. It's also true the wanting and the specifics do go hand-in-hand, and for many a-spec people, they have no desire for sex or romance (or little). And the way society is currently structured is very hostile and dismissive of that. Hell, when I got this ask I was at a family event, and we were talking about my new apartment and the red color my living room is, and my grandmother made a comment about me maybe meeting a fireman.

Now, my parents and my siblings and I all sort of recoiled, because we know better. I don't want a fireman. I don't want an anybody. But that doesn't mean my relationships are less meaningful than sexual or romantic ones. I feel love and care for people in my life intensely, and they're precious people to me. I don't like the way society pushes those important parts of my life aside, and I don't like them being talked about in a way that sounds like they matter less, or they're less valuable, or they should be de-prioritized in favor of sex or romance.

And, sometimes, i just want to go through life for a while not thinking about either of those things, because they're not part of my own personal life at all, but my life is still full and rich and interesting.

Now, this was a quick 101/102 level introduction to the topics. There's much more to discuss around libido and romantic libido and zucchinis and qprs and different forms of attraction and squishes and on and on and on.

But I don't think that's what you want right now when you're first stepping into understanding the topics.

So I hope this helped you understand the ace and aro spectrums better.

Cheers!

[morlock-holmes]

The real reason that nonviolence is considered to be a virtue in Negroes—I am not speaking now of its racial value, another matter altogether— is that white men do not want their lives, their self-image, or their property threatened. One wishes they would say so more often. At the end of a television program on which Malcom X and I both appeared, Malcolm was stopped by a white member of the audience who said, “I have a thousand dollars and an acre of land. What’s going to happen to me?” I admired the directness of the man’s question, but I didn’t hear Malcolm’s reply, because I was trying to explain to someone else that the situation of the Irish a hundred years ago and the situation of the Negro today cannot very usefully be compared. Negroes were brought here in chains long before the Irish ever thought of leaving Ireland; what manner of consolation is it to be told that emigrants arriving here—voluntarily—long after you did have risen far above you? In the hall, as I was waiting for the elevator, someone shook my hand and said, “Goodbye, Mr. James Baldwin. We'll soon be addressing you as Mr. James X.” And I thought, for an awful moment, My God, if this goes on much longer, you probably will.

James Baldwin - The Fire Next TIme

Man, man I followed a chain of links and found that paper, "Decolonization is not a metaphor" and I read like three quarters of the dang thing before I realized that we all already got mad at it because it is morally insane.

This is less about the idea of a literal mass expropriation of land, and therefore wealth, from the current owners in the US, which A) is not going to happen any time soon (Land acknowledgements are acknowledging that you ain't giving the damn land back to anybody); and B) if you tell me that the land I live in will be given to the local indigenous people my first question is,

"So will they be raising the rent as much as the previous owners did?"

What's morally insane is... Okay, no, I object to the idea that the question is irrelevent, although the authors of the paper do say fairly explicitly that it is wholly irrelevant.

What I find morally insane about the paper is not the idea that the authors wish to ignore my feelings on the matter, but the very strong suggestion that I should train myself not to have an opinion on the matter.

I linked the paper up there, I don't want to summarize too much, but essentially, it posits a triad of indiginous person/settler/slave, which in the US context maps more or less onto Native American/white/black.

Indigenous peoples are those who have creation stories, not colonization stories, about how we/they came to be in a particular place - indeed how we/they came to be a place. Our/their relationships to land comprise our/their epistemologies, ontologies, and cosmologies. For the settlers, Indigenous peoples are in the way and, in the destruction of Indigenous peoples, Indigenous communities, and over time and through law and policy, Indigenous peoples’ claims to land under settler regimes, land is recast as property and as a resource.

Settler, in this paper, is not meant very literally. The settlement of the US involved not just the theft of land specifically, but the creation of certain narratives about who has rights to use land and in what way. My ancestors in this country go back hundreds of years but they are, to our best knowledge, legally white, and I am therefore a settler in the sense of having a certain relationship to certain racial and conceptual categories.

Don't get me wrong: the history of this country makes at least certain versions of that idea very plausible.

So what am I supposed to do with that?

If I take the authors of this paper morally seriously, (And once I took similar views very seriously, in some ways I still do) where does that put me?

Settlers in a country like the US do not and cannot have a creation story about how we came to be in a certain place. That I am a settler in the US very much does not make me somehow indigenous to Brittany where many of my ancestors come from; I do not have a story of how my people came to be in Brittany or Great Brittain any more than I have one for how we came to be in the USA.

What I can become, perhaps, is an immigrant:

Settlers are not immigrants. Immigrants are beholden to the Indigenous laws and epistemologies of the lands they migrate to.

Here's a question: How, as a settler, would I acquire the moral right to influence the laws and epistemologies of whichever land I should migrate to?

I don't have the legitimizing moral narratives that indigenous peoples do, am I doomed to simply occupy a subordinate place in a new hierarchy?

The authors, I should note, explicitly say no, but also explicitly say that they basically can't explain why not and so I just shouldn't worry about the question for now.

Honestly I think a tremendous amount of American history involves attempts to deal, psychologically, with the fact that the question of who has power and who doesn't has been decided in a way which is at odds with most of our country's moral pretensions. I think that shame has been one of the great psychological factors driving white attitudes in the US, both racist and anti-racist.

Think about what the "moves to innocence" that the authors delineate would mean if you took their moral position seriously. Those moves to innocence are attempts, I am quite sure, to find a way to act in the world for your own benefit without feeling shame. The indigenous person can ask for the control of the land they occupy without shame; for the settler, even to occupy the land is to make yourself part of a shameful process.

"Decolonization is not a metaphor" treats the desire to express oneself without feeling shame around it as essentially a distraction.

The settler is simultaneously morally obligated to exercise a tremendous amount of power and effort, because how could the non-metaphorical expropriation of all US land and the end of the USA as a functioning state take anything other than a tremendous amount of power and effort, but also to have no thought at all about what the ethical exercise of power from a settler would look like.

It is morally imperative that the settler begin to act and use his power in a moral way and at the same time the very question of how the settler would do so is understood as a frustrating distraction from more important questions.

The only possible response for a person who takes this seriously and conceives of themselves as a settler is to just fall back on an entirely incoherent self-image because the demands being made of them are fundamentally incoherent, to feel a kind of shame without shame.

I have probably over-explained this and yet not quite gotten to the central problem. I really disagree with this paper, and I think it is fundamentally unserious and fundamentally poisonous.

Not because the authors propose a massive reorganization of land but because they are utterly unwilling to think about what that would mean on any level whatsoever.

[elminx]

The Great Aquarius Spell of 2024

Are you the kind of person who wants to make a real change in the world? Are you the kind of person who thinks BIG? Who is disappointed in the status quo? Do you want to see a better world for all people?

Then this is the spell for you.

And no, this isn't exactly a spell tutorial. Let's call it a spell invitation. A cosmic chance to supercharge your magic.

Why now?

This month (January 2024) has two days that strongly highlight Aquarius and Uranus energy. For those in the know, the sign of Aquarius and Uranus, its planetary ruler, are the rebels, the rulebreakers, the big thinkers, and the revolutionists of the astrological zodiac.

I want to list for you a couple of famous Aquariuses throughout history for a moment so might get an idea of what I mean here: Abraham Lincoln, Thomas Edison, Ferdinand Magellan, Fredrick Douglas, Charles Darwin, Galileo Galilei, Yoko One, Charles Lindbergh, Aaron Burr, Bob Marley, Kim Jong-Il, Rosa Parks, and Grigori Rasputin.

One thing that can be said for the Aquarius spirit is that it rarely leads to a milk toast personality. From great revolutionaries to despots to peace activists, Aquarius is THE sign of political change, the kind of change that ripples through history.

Circle these two days on your calendar:

On Saturday, 1/20, the Sun and Pluto meet up in conjunction and move in lockstep with one another into the sign of Aquarius.

One week later, on 1/27, Uranus stations direct.

These are the kind of days when change happens. But we witches don't just let change happen, we MAKE change happen. This is the best aligned chance to enact real and lasting change - the kind of change that the above listed Aquariuses made - for quite some time.

We just need to use it.

As stated above, I am not going to outline an exact ritual or spell for you here because this spell needs to come from you. It should, in some way, reflect the change that YOU want to see in the world.

But I will give you some places to start.

A General Spell Framework

There are three major players in these powerhouse days. 1/20 involves the Sun, Uranus, and Pluto and 1/27 involves Uranus. As outer planets, Uranus and Pluto are considered beyond human influence and most astrologers believe that they cannot be petitioned in the same way that the seven planetary powers can. The Sun, on the other hand, can be. Create an altar to the Sun. Moreover, create an altar to the Sun in the sign of Aquarius. Aquarius is our fixed air sign so elements of air can be added to your altar. Additionally, you could include photos of famous Aquarius changemakers that you particularly admire or even non-Aquarius changemakers who worked with the particular cause you are championing. The Sun supports life itself, Uranus and Pluto are our planets of change, and Aquarius supports community of all kinds. Intentions around the world as one community will be highly effective during this time. If you are struggling for an intention, something like "Everybody deserves more love, not less" is a reasonable place to start.

Think big. The sky is the limit here. This isn't a day for magic to fix your own life - this is a day for magic to fix the world. Do you want to stop climate instability? End homelessness? Redress great injustices?

The symbols for the Sun, Uranus, Pluto, and Aquarius may prove useful in your spellwork. You can carve them onto candles or onto petition papers.

If you work with tarot in your spellwork, there are a few cards that can be worked with to enact great changes. The one that comes to mind immediately is the Death Card because what greater change exists than to exit this life for the next? The death cards can be directed to remove anything from a situation through a metaphorical "killing" of it. And then, of course, we have the Tower - the OG card connected to the energy of Uranus. The Tower is associated with dramatic and unthinkable change (as the card depicts) but it has a deeper esoteric association with the changing of belief systems, like the sign of Aquarius! And then we have Judgment which can serve the purpose of bringing about consequences to those that need to face their actions.

Alternatively, if you work with runes, both the Dagaz and the Tiwaz runes can be used to enact change (Dagaz, as a brand new day and a brand new chance) and Tiwaz (to enact divine justice). The rune Halagaz can also be used similarly to the Tower card to bring down systems and enact the change of inevitability. Though I find the energy of Hagalaz to be similar to that of the Tower, I favor the rune in this case as it implies the inevitable rebirth at the end of the change: when the ice melts, new things will grow again.

That said, as always, your magic needs to work for you.

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